^I/-^2-. 






HIBRARY OF CONGRESS.! 

f|wMl^£5^..i: \ 

^ I ^^r- f-^-^-fc^ i 

! UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. \ 



THE 



OBLIGATIONS OF THE WOELD 



TO THE 



BIBLE: 



A SERIES Of LECTUEES TO YOUNG MEN, 



4 ■■' .Z12L , 

GARDINER ;SPRING, D.D. 

PASTOR OF THE BRICK PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH IN THE CITY 
OF NEW YORK. 



SECOND EDITION. 



PHILADELPHIA ; 
PRESBYTERIAN BOARD Or PUBLICATION. 






Z) 



Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1846, by 
A. W. MITCHELL, 
in the Office of the Clerk of the District Court for the Eastern 
District of Pennsylvania. 



6 f > 1 



INTRODUCTION 



In venturing to give this work to the public, the Au- 
thor complies with repeated and earnest solicitations. 
The subject is of sufficient importance to have em- 
ployed the pen of abler men ; nor does he doubt that 
abler thinkers, and students of greater research and 
more leisure, will find abundant cause for animadver- 
sion in the following pages. They have been prepa- 
red amid the undiminished labours of the pulpit ; 
and now that he has committed them to the press, 
more deeply than ever does he desire that his 
time and engagements permitted him to give them 
a more careful revision. Though very many of 
the thoughts here presented are not new, he is not 
aware that the train of thought and illustration 
has ever been presented before. So far as this 
humble and imperfect effort may tend to such a 
result, his earnest desire has been to exalt and hon- 
our the Holy Scriptures, more especially in the esti- 
mation of the young. With the fervent prayer to 
their God, and their fathers' God, that it may be thus 
directed, he submits it to their attention. 

iii 



CONTENTS 



LECTURE I. 
The Use of Oral and Written Language to be attributed to a Superna- 
tural Revelation -7 

LECTURE IL 
The Literary Merit of the Scriptures ------- 32 

LECTURE in. 
The ObUgations of Legislative Science to the Bible - - - - 52 

LECTURE IV. 
The Bible friendly to Civil Liberty 80 

LECTURE V. 
The Scriptures the Foundation of Religious Liberty and the Rights of 

Conscience - - 101 

LECTURE VL 
The Morality of the Bible 128 

LECTURE VIL 
The Influence of the Bible upon the Social Institutions - - - 149 

LECTURE VIIL 
The Influence of the Bible upon Slavery .----. 175 

LECTURE IX. 
The Influence of the Bible on the Extent and Certainty of Moral 

Science 206 

LECTURE X. 

The Pre-eminence of the Bible in producing Holiness and True 

Religion 225 

LECTURE XL 

The Pre-eminence of the Bible for the Influences of the Holy Spirit 248 

LECTURE XII. 

The Obligations of the World to the Bible for the Sabbath - - 268 

LECTURE XIIL 
The Influence of the Bible on Human Happiness - - - - 288 

LECTURE XIV. 
Conclusion -• ^--.. 308 

iv 



THE 

OBLIGATIONS OF THE WORLD 
Ta 



THE BIBLE. 



LECTURE I. 

THE USE OP ORAL AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE TO BE 
ATTRIBUTED TO A SUPERNATURAL REVELATION. 

<^ Whoever," says the celebrated Tholuck, "stands 
on a lofty mountain, should not look merely at the 
gold which the morning sun pours on the grass, and 
showers at his feet; but he should sometimes also 
look behind him into the deep valley where the sha- 
dows still rest, that he may more sensibly feel that 
sun is indeed a sun. Thus is it also salutary for the 
disciple of Christ, at times, from the kingdom of light 
to cast forth a glance over the dark stage where men 
play their part in lonely gloom, without a Saviour, 
without a God !" The inquiry has no doubt often 
occurred to every reflecting mind. What had the con- 
dition of the world now been, had no supernatural 
revelation ever been imparted to men ? The design 
of these lectures, my young friends, is to call your 
attention to the Bible, and to exalt and honour, in 

7 



8 ORAL AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE. 

your estimation and my own, this great book. The 
most fearful blow that can be directed against the 
best interests of men, is aimed by unbelief; and owes 
its success, not unfrequently to an imperfect know- 
ledge of the Bible, as well as neglect of its sacred 
precepts. Can then a higher service be performed 
for the youth of our country than to vindicate its 
claims, assert its superiority, and challenge for it the 
scrutiny of the incredulous, and the admiration of 
every devout mind? 

We look for greatness in all the works of God. 
We gaze upon the exterior universe, and exclaim 
with the Psalmist, " Marvellous are thy works. Lord 
God Almighty; in wisdom hast thou made them 
all !" We expect a supernatural revelation to ex- 
hibit its Divine author in the same illustrious and 
splendid character in which he appears in the works 
of creation and providence. Nor are such expecta- 
tions disappointed or deceived. Infinite intelligence 
belongs to the Deity. We see it in his works, and 
we see it in his word. At the first glance, we can 
scarcely fail to perceive that the God of creation and 
providence is the God of the Bible, and that the sys- 
tem of truth revealed in the Scriptures must have 
originated with the same being who created and 
governs the world.* When, however, we examine 
the Bible carefully and minutely ; when we explore 
the treasures of its pages, and seem for the moment 
to grasp the full measure of its wonders and its 
knowledge ; how is our admiration heightened ! The 
words of the apostle break almost instinctively from 
our lips ; the expression of his feelings becomes the 

* The spirit of this remark is largely illustrated in that incom- 
parable work, "The Analogy of Religion, natural and revealed, to 
the Constitution and Course of Nature," by Joseph Butler, LL. D. 



ORAL AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE. 9 

best expression of our own, — " the depth of the 
riches both of the wisdom and the knowledge of 
God!" 

It was the remark of a sensible and thinking lay- 
man, many years ago made to the writer, that "it 
sometimes seemed to him that the Bible is as much 
greater than all other books, as its Author is greater 
than all other authors/^ I am well persuaded that 
the seeming extravagance of such an observation 
will diminish with our increasing acquaintance with 
this wonderful volume. Tindal, a deistical writer in 
the early part of the seventeenth century, in his work 
entitled, " Christianity as old as the Creation,'' labours 
to show that it was impossible for God to teach men 
what they did not know before, and that the perfec- 
tion of the human mind is such, that it admits of no 
addition from a supernatural revelation. I cannot 
but hope that the presumption and preposterousness 
of this remark will appear in the following pages. 
It is not surprising that a deist should depreciate a 
supernatural revelation. But it is matter of surprise 
that, as Christians, we should not appreciate it more 
highly. There is no book in any country, in any 
language, in any age, that can be compared with this. 
From one page of this wonderful volume, more may 
be acquired, than reason or philosophy could acquire 
by the patience and toil of centuries. The Bible ex- 
pands the mind, exalts the faculties, developes the 
powers of the will and of feeling, furnishes a more 
just estimate of the true dignity of man, and opens 
more sources of intellectual and spiritual enjoyment 
than any other book. Science and literature have 
taken deep root in this consecrated soil. No book 
furnishes so many important hints to the human mind ; 
gives so many clews to intellectual discovery, and has 



10 ORAL AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE. 

SO many charms in so many departments of human 
inquiry. In whatever paths of science, or walks of 
human knowledge we tread, there is scarcely a science, 
or pursuit of permanent advantage to mankind, which 
may not either trace its origin to the Bible, or to 
which the Bible will not be found to be a powerful 
auxiliary. 

Whether we consider its influence upon an oral 
and written language ; upon history and literature ; 
upon laws and government ; upon civil and religious 
liberty; upon the social institutions; upon moral 
science and the moral virtues; upon the holiness 
which fits men for heaven, and the peculiar spirit and 
exalted character which prepares them to act well 
their part on the earth ; upon the happiness they en- 
joy in the present world, or upon the agency and 
power by which these desirable results are secured ; 
we shall be at no loss to see that the world in which 
we live is under everlasting obligations to a super- 
natural revelation. In this enumeration of topics, 
you have the general outline of the following lectures. 

The present opportunity will be devoted to the 
thought, that the use of oral and written language is 
to be attributed to a supernatural revelation. The 
art most necessary for man, even from the commence- 
ment of his existence, must have been language. If 
not an indispensable instrument of thought, yet with- 
out it, his mind must of necessity be confined within 
a very narrow and limited range. His most immedi- 
ate wants, the play of various passions, and perhaps 
an imperfect and incoherent narrative might be indi- 
cated by signs and the expression of his features. 
Communications less apparent than these — those 
shades of emotion, those fainter recollections, and 
above all, those more intricate combinations of though^ 



ORAL AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE. 11 

arising from the experience of others, as compared 
with, and confirming, modifying, or refuting his own, 
— these must be debarred him until he is in possession 
of an oral language. 

And how could man ever have invented articulate 
speech ? Universal observation shows that children 
learn to speak by imitation ; and " where the oppor- 
tunities of imitation are wanting, the use of articulate 
speech is unknown.'^ If I mistake not, it is a fact 
well ascertained that not an instance is found of the 
use of articulate sounds as the signs of thought, un- 
less taught immediately by God, or gradually by 
those who had themselves been instructed. We see 
not how it is possible for language to have been of 
human invention. Its structure is too complicated 
and artificial. It must have required the previous 
use of language to have constructed the most simple 
language of the most uninstructed tribes. And whence 
is it, if language were of human invention, that the 
oldest languages are more complete in their structure 
than those languages that have been more recently 
formed ; and why, as we mark the progress of im- 
provement, are we not carried back to some early 
and rude state of this invention ? 

The use of language is so necessary to the conve- 
nience and comfort of man, and the difficulty of form- 
ing it so obvious, that it is not unreasonable to sup- 
pose it would be immediately conferred upon him by 
the Author of his existence. He had a body 
" curiously and wonderfully made," and a mind so 
capacious, strong, and penetrating, that he was be- 
fore his apostacy, the greatest, as well as the best 
of men : and yet, must this "noblest work of God" 
have been, very imperfect without speech. Nor is it 
easy to see how his attainments could have been so 



12 ORAL AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE. 

surprisingly great and rapid, or how his intellectual 
endowments could have been so successfully cultiva- 
ted, as we know they were, if he had been originally 
ignorant of all language. 

But while the nature of the case might convince 
us that language is of divine origin, when we look 
into the Mosaic history, that conviction must be con- 
firmed. There we learn that the laws given to our 
first parents were given through the medium of lan- 
guage. They obviously conversed with God and 
with one another. Nor have we any intimation that 
this intercourse was conducted in any other way than 
by an oral language. The early worship of our first 
parents could not have been purely mental and med- 
itative ; but oral, and in the noblest language ever 
uttered by man. We learn, too, that our progenitor 
very early gave names to all the animal creation. It 
was by the channel of an oral language also, that the 
tempter infused the first taint of sin into the bosom 
of man, breathing his poison with his words. It 
seems indeed to be more generally conceded, that the 
first use of oral language is to be attributed to a su- 
pernatural revelation. There are exceptions to this 
opinion, but it is very difficult to give any other tol- 
erable account of the origin of this art.* 

The researches of the most accredited philologists 
go far to support this opinion. The more critically 

* This topic is discussed at length by Herder on the Origin of 
Language; by Shuckford in his Connexions; by Condillac on the 
Origin of Human Knowledge ; by Smith in his Theory of Moral 
Sentiment ; by Magee in a valuable note to his work on Atone- 
ment and Sacrifice ; by the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, article Lan- 
guage; by Dr. Samuel S. Smith; by Stillingfleet, in his Origines 
Sacrce ; in the Boylean Lectures ; in Beattie's Theory of Language ; 
in the Scholar Armed ; in Woolaston's Religion of Nature, and in 
Winder's History of Knowledge. 



ORAL AND WEITTEN LANGUAGE. 13 

modern, as well as ancient languages are investigated, 
the more are they found to resemble each other in 
their roots and primary forms, and the more clearly 
are referable to one common stock. The languages 
which prevailed in all the South of Europe after the 
destruction of the Roman Empire, were a barbarous 
mixture of the Latin with the different languages of 
the Northern invaders. The modern languages of 
Europe have all evidently been derived from the 
Roman ; the Roman from the Greek, and the Greek 
from the Phoenician. Goguet, in his Origin of Laws, 
Arts and Sciences, remarks, that " the comparison of 
the Phoenician and Greek Alphabets would alone be 
sufficient to convince us of this. It is visible that the 
Greek characters are only the Phoenician letters 
turned from right to left.^' Authorities might be greatly 
multiplied to show that the Phoenicians spoke a dia- 
lect of the Hebrew. The Chaldee, Syriac, and Sa- 
maritan are also dialects of the Hebrew, without any 
considerable deviation, or many additional words. 
There is a striking similarity also between the 
Ethiopic and the Hebrew ; the Hebrew and the 
Arabic, and the Arabic and the Persian. There are 
strong analogies between the Sanscrit and the Hebrew, 
and between the Hebrew and the Coptic ; while the 
Coptic is identified with the ancient Egyptian. Dr. 
Lightfoot, whom Adam Clarke pronounces to have 
been the first scholar in Europe, is of the opinion 
that the original tongue was Hebrew ; that this was 
the language spoken in Canaan before the time of 
Joshua ; that it was the language of Adam and the 
language of God. " God," says he, " was the first 
founder of it, and Adam was the first speaker of it. 
It began with the world and the Church, and increased 
in glory till the captivity in Babylon. The whole 



14 ORAL AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE. 

language is contained in the Bible, and no other book 
contains in it an entire language.'^ 

The German scholars of the present century would 
present much the same account, while they seem to 
hesitate in expressing the opinion that the Hebrew is 
the mother tongue. We learn from them that the 
modern languages of Europe, together with the 
Gothic, Sclavonic, Greek and Latin are discovered to 
bear a close affinity ; and under the name of Indo- 
European, are classed with them in one family. 
Between these and the Semitic family, which, among 
others, includes the Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, Sama- 
ritan, Ethiopic and Arabic, striking analogies are 
discovered, and by every new research they are 
becoming more fully identified. Wiseman, a learned 
Romanist, says, that the decision of the academy of 
St. Petersburg upon the celebrated paper of count 
Goulianoff was, that all languages are to be con- 
sidered as dialects of one now lost. I am at a loss to 
understand the ground of this uncertainty. The 
Chaldee and Syriac were formerly one language, 
only they were written with a different character; 
and they were both dialects of the Hebrew. The 
hypothesis, for it is a hypothesis merely, that the 
book of Job is older than the Pentateuch and was 
written in Arabic, seems indeed to countervail the 
position that the Hebrew is the first written language. 
And yet Lightfoot unhesitatingly affirms that the 
Arabic is a dialect of the Hebrew, and that " all lan- 
guages are indebted to this, and this to none." This 
much however may be confided in, that both believers 
and unbelievers in the Mosaic history have affirmed 
the original unity of all language ; disclaiming the 
notion that men are of entirely distinct races, and 
thus far corroborating the position that the same 



ORAL AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE. 15 

divine Author of the physical organs of speech im- 
parted to man the knowledge of their use and power. 

The first method of rendering thought visible was 
by pictures, symbols, and the various kinds of idea- 
graphic writing. But there is a marked distinction 
between these imperfect and elementary forms, and 
Alphabetical writing. This is a system which is 
expressive primarily of sound rather than of thought. 
Instead of employing characters as multifarious as 
the different objects to be pointed out, it makes 
visible by the combination of a few elements of 
sound, every idea which the mind is capable of con- 
ceiving. 

From our familiarity with this art, it is not easy 
for us to appreciate its importance. The extreme 
simplicity by which results so complicated are at- 
tained, bears a strong analogy, not to the works of 
man's invention, but to* the operations of the God of 
nature, distinguished as they are, not less by the 
fewness and simplicity of their agents, than their 
astonishing, nay unlimited combinations. Were we 
now in possession qxA^ of such a mode of writing as 
distinguished the ancient Egyptians, or the Mexicans 
upon the discovery of this continent, and as distin- 
guishes the Chinese at the present day ; and should 
some gigantic mind penetrate the mysteries of sound, 
embody them and give them form, and present to us 
our simple Alphabet, the first lesson of our childhood, 
and explain to us its combinations and its uses ; what 
honours, I had almost said, what veneration should 
we not render him ! 

The claims of most nations to this singular dis- 
covery arise solely from their supposed antiquity. 
And yet it is a somewhat remarkable fact, that some 
of the most ancient nations remained destitute of this 

2 



IG ORAL AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE. 

art long after it had prevailed in adjacent countries.* 
Dr. Mc Knight remarks that " the Hteral method of 
writing, is generally said to have been first practised 
by the Phoenicians ;" though he himself countenances 
the idea that the first specimen of the art was that 
on the tables given to Moses. But it may be shown 
with the utmost degree of probability that the PhoBui- 
cian Alphabet was derived from the Hebrew. A 
learned writer in the Edinburgh Encyclopsedia ex- 
presses the opinion, "that the pretensions of the 
Phoenicians must give way to the better established 
claim of the Hebrews." Goguet thinks it more pro- 
bable that this invention is to be ascribed either to 
the Assyrians, or the Egyptians. It is true that the 
Assyrians were a more ancient people than the 
Hebrews; but their antiquity extended beyond the 
period when letters were invented. On the mere 
ground of antiquity, they have a higher claim than 
any other nation. But I have found no evidence in 
favour of their claims except this. On the contrary, 
the best authorities dispute their pretensions. With 
regard to Egypt, more may be said in invalidating 
its claims to this invention than has been said against 
those of Phosnicia and Assyria. Is there not a sort 
of literary mania which has led so many renowned 
men to ascribe almost all that is valuable in literature, 
science, or the arts to Egypt ? Though comparatively 

* The leading authors to which I have had access on this general 
subject are Winder's History of Knowledge — Goguet's Origin of 
Laws — Dugald Stewart's Dissertation prefixed to the Encyclopasdia 
Britannica — the Edinburgh Review for 1836, — the works of Light- 
foot — Astle on the Origin and Progress of Writing — Warburton's 
Divine Legation of Moses — Gilbert Wakefield's Dissertation on 
Alphabetical Writing— Daubuz on the Revelation — and also seme 
valuable thoughts at the close of the last volume of Dr. Mc Knight 
on the Apostolical Epistles. 



ORAL AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE. 17 

a very incompetent judge of matters of this sort, I 
have never been so convinced as some have been of 
the superiority of this degraded and pagan empire. 
Egypt " owed her splendour to strangers, rather than 
to her own vigorous and nourished intellect." Scythia 
rivalled her in arms. Tyre in commerce, Syria in 
letters, Chaldea in astronomy, and Babylon in every 
department of natural science. Dr. Delaney in his 
Life of David, expresses the opinion that the great 
models of Grecian architecture, are not, as has more 
generally been supposed, to be traced to Egypt, but 
to that most perfect of all models, the temple at 
Jerusalem, the entire plan of which was given to 
David by God himself. The hieroglyphics of the 
ancient Egyptians were never brought to such a state 
of perfection as to constitute a system of phonetic 
writing. They remain to the present day ; and they 
are almost useless and silent, because they represent 
none of the elements of articulation, and bear no 
analogy to any other system, whether ancient or 
modern. Whatever may have been their learning of 
other kinds, the Egyptians never possessed Alpha- 
betical writing; they were "contented with their 
hieroglyphical method and never, of themselves, 
advanced beyond it." The same may be remarked 
of the Chinese even at the present day. It is a point 
well established that the elements of their writing, or 
keys as they are termed, are merely symbolical, and 
could never have given rise to any one of the Oriental 
alphabets. It is " purely an artificial structure which 
denotes every idea by its appropriate sign without 
any relation to the utterance. It speaks to the eye 
like the numerical cyphers of the Europeans, which 
every one understands and utters in his own way." 
Modern authors seem generally to agree in tracing 



18 ORAL AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE. 

the pervading ignorance of this people to this fact. 
Neither can the claims of the Hindoos be defended on 
any better grounds than those of the nations already 
named. Sir William Jones has clearly made it appear 
that the Hindoo pretensions to antiquity are exces- 
sively extravagant, if not altogether fabulous. Events 
which they used to fix at a date of some million or 
two years back, actually took place in the tenth, or 
eleventh century of the Christian era. Their famous 
astronomical tables, by which it has been imagined 
that great antiquity might be assigned to this nation, 
are shown to be incorrect, and to have been calculated 
backwards. It has been satisfactorily proved that 
the treatise which they consider the most ancient in 
the world, must have been compiled since the Chris- 
tian era. 

Though no man is warranted in speaking with 
confidence on this subject, yet is there not some good 
reason to believe that the earliest specimens of a writ- 
ten language came from the Hebrews ? Is there not 
presumptive evidence of this, in the mere fact that 
the first oral language was the Hebrew? If the 
Hebrew language was the language originally im- 
parted to men ; if it was preserved through all the 
corruptions of the antediluvian world, through the 
division of the family of Noah in the time of Peleg, and 
through the subsequent confusion of tongues ; if it 
was the language in which God spoke to Abraham and 
to Moses, and in which Moses conveyed the revela- 
tion of the divine will to mankind ; is there not some 
strong presumption in favour of the idea that it was 
the first written language ? 

Notwithstanding the efforts of the infidels of Ger- 
many, who have endeavored to show that alphabeti- 
cal writing was not in use at all even so early as the 



ORAL AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE. 19 

time of Moses, it will not be denied except by infidels 
of the boldest class, that the Hebrew characters 
existed in a perfect state when this inspired author 
wrote the Pentateuch. Dr. Winder, in his History of 
Knowledge, maintains the position, that the art of 
alphabetical writing was communicated to Moses 
*^ when the great Lawgiver gave him the law upon 
mount Sinai." The considerations which support 
this hypothesis, to say the least, amount to strong pre- 
sumption in its favour. With two exceptions writing 
is not even apparently mentioned in the Scriptures 
before the giving of the law, and these as we shall 
presently show, may not invalidate the hypothesis of 
which we are speaking. There was no such thing 
as writing known before the flood, nor is there any 
mention made of it in the book of Genesis before that 
period. Nor was it known from the time of the flood 
to the time of Abraham's leaving Chaldea. Nor was 
it known in Canaan at the death of Sarah, and when 
Abraham bought the cave of Ephron the Hittite. 
Goguet remarks, that "all deeds among the Hebrews 
at that time were verbal^ and were authenticated and 
ascertained by being made in presence of all the peo- 
ple.'' Nor was it known at the time of Isaac's mar- 
riage. Nor was it known either in Phoenicia, or 
Canaan, at the time of Isaac's league with Abimelech. 
Nor was it known either in Canaan or Syria, v/hen 
Jacob went to Laban. Nor was it known in the 
family of Jacob, while Joseph was in Egypt, either 
during his servitude, or preferment. Nor was it 
known at the new settlement of the lands after the 
famine ; nor when the Hebrews settled in Goshen ; 
nor when their oppression began, and the sanguinary 
edicts were published.* Though these were periods 

* See these positions illustrated and defended in Winder. 
2* 



20 ORAL AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE. 

and transactions, during which had alphabetical letters 
existed, they would not only have been of the greatest 
utility, but as it seems to us indispensable, and could 
scarcely fail of being mentioned ; yet are they not only 
not mentioned, but all these important transactions, 
and all the correspondence between the parties, as 
well as all the communications from Heaven, were 
effected by verbal intercourse. 

And yet there is a precise period beyond which 
they are mentioned, and mentioned on almost every 
fit occasion, and introduced into all the national and 
ecclesiastical affairs of the Jewish people. That 
period is the inscription of the law on Mount Sinai by 
the hand of God, on the two tables of stone. . 

After this period, Moses is commanded to write the 
laws in a book; to write the narrative of the war 
with the Amalekites ; to write a copy of the law for 
future kings ; to record the laws that they might be 
read ; and to place a copy of them in the ark of the 
covenant. After this period also, and not before, as 
a close examination of the whole passage most clearly 
shows, we read of the engraving of the names of the 
twelve tribes on the breast-plate of judgment, and of 
the engraving on the mitre of Aaron of the memora- 
ble label, HOLINESS to the lord. 

The giving of the tables, it will be noticed, was a 
different thing from the writing of the tables. The 
disregard of this very plain distinction has led to the 
supposition, that the charge given to Moses which 
relates to the ephod and breast-plate for the High 
Priest, on which inscriptions were to be made like the 
engravings of a signet, was given before the law was 
written. The law was not given to Moses until just 
as he was about to leave the mount, at the close of 
the forty days. But it was written more than a month 



ORAL AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE. 21 

before ; and not until after it was written, did Moses 
receive the instruction to prepare the ephod and the 
breast-plate of Aaron. Signets are mentioned before 
the writing of the law, but there is no evidence that 
they were not purely hieroglyphic. God now required 
Moses to engrave on the mitre of Aaron letters, as 
distinctly as had heretofore been the hieroglyphic 
representations of a signet. 

Now, whence is this perfect silence on the subject 
of alphabetical writing, until after the supernatural 
writing of the law, and whence the frequent notices 
of the art afterwards ? Is not the only answer to this 
question found in the fact, that the origin of the art 
is to be attributed to God himself, and that he was the 
original instructor of Moses during the forty days in 
which he was upon the mount ? 

It would be natural to suppose, if a written language 
were thus discovered to men, that there would be 
some intimations of this fact in the Mosaic history. 
Are there no intimations of it ? Let us advert a few 
moments to the narrative of this transaction as it is 
recorded in the book of Exodus. " And the Lord said 
unto Moses, Come up to me in the mount and be 
there ; and I will give thee tables of stone, and a law 
and commandments, which I have written.^' The 
tables here spoken of, it is obvious, were already pre- 
pared and finished at some previous time. God affirms 
that he had written them. Subsequently to this, we 
are told that " God gave unto Moses, when he had 
made an end of communing with him on mount Sinai, 
two tables of testimony, tables of stone, written with 
the finger of God." Just after this, the fact is repeat- 
ed, " and the tables were the work of God, and the 
writing was the writing of God, graven upon the 
tables." It is a question which deserves to be im- 



22 ORAL AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE. 

partially considered, whether God does not here affirm 
that he himself is the author of this invention. When 
a work is declared in the Scriptures to be " the work 
of God/^ to have been wrought by the " finger of 
God," the idea conveyed is that it is the peculiar work 
of God, and altogether above the power of man. 
When it is said that Israel is " the sheep of God's 
hand," the meaning is that they belong to God and to 
no other. When the Saviour says that he cast out 
devils bi/ the finger of God, we understand him as 
declaring that he performs a work to which no other 
power is adequate but the power of God. When the 
magicians of Egypt exclaimed of the miracles of 
Moses, " this is the finger of God," they acknowledged 
his divine mission. And so the Psalmist, when he 
says, " when I consider the heavens, the work of thy 
fingers," expresses the idea that no other could create 
the heavens but God. On the same principle, idols 
are the invention of men, and are called the ivork of 
men^s hands, and which their own fingers have made. 
Is it not then a fair exegetical inference, that, when 
the law is declared to have been written by the finger 
of God, the legitimate import of the phrase is, that it 
was so peculiarly his work that the original invention 
is due to him ? 

I remarked, with two exceptions writing is not even 
apparently mentioned in the Scriptures before the 
giving of the law. One of these occurs just before 
the giving of the law, and refers to a future rehear- 
sal in the ears of Joshua of what Moses should subse- 
quently commit to writing for the instruction and 
encouragement of his successor ; and by no means 
proves that the art of writing was known to Moses 
before the time when the law was written. Espe- 
cially is this remark deserving of consideration, when 



ORAL AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE. 23 

it is recollected that it is no uncommon thing for the 
Scriptures to notice future events by this sort of anti- 
cipation. The other apparent exception will be found 
no exception at all. It is recorded in the twenty- 
fourth chapter of Exodus. "And Moses wrote all 
the words of the Lord ; — and he took the book of the 
covenant and read in the audience of the people.'^ 
It is said, that as God did not call Moses up into the 
mount and give him the written tables until after this 
period, Moses must have had the art of writing before 
the tables were written. But the question is, when 
were the tables written ? Moses had been up to the 
mount with God before the period here referred to. 
His first ascent is noticed as far back as the nineteenth 
chapter. He had ascended a second time, as related 
in the same chapter. And as is related in the latter 
part of the same chapter, he had ascended a third 
time. Not until he came down after the fourth 
ascent, is he represented as writing the civil and judi- 
cial statutes and reading them to the people. Now 
had not God prepared the two tables of the moral 
law before Moses wrote and read to the people their 
judicial code ? He had not committed them to Moses 
till after this, but when he did commit them, it was a 
commitment of tables, as we have already seen, pre- 
viously prepared ; how long before no man can tell. 
But it cannot be shown that it was after Moses wrote 
and read the judicial statutes. 

It is also objected to this position, that Job must 
have lived previous to the time of Moses, and that as 
he distinctly refers to ancient writing by books and 
sculpture, there must have been a written language 
before the giving of the law. When it shall be made 
to appear that the book of Job Avas written at an 
earlier period than the time of Moses, it will be time 



24 ORAL AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE. 

enough to give weight to this objection. The age in 
which Job hved, and in which the book of Job was 
written is unknown. If the most distinguished critics 
may be rehed upon, this book was posterior to the 
time of Moses, or Moses himself was its author. Dr. 
Warburton judges it to have been written about the 
close of the Babylonish captivity. Dr. John Mason 
Good, Dr. Winder and Dr. Grey, with great strength 
of argument, attribute it to Moses. Gregory Nazi- 
anzen, Spanheim, and Adam Clarke attribute it to 
Solomon. Several distinguished writers have sup- 
posed that the silence of the author of this book re- 
specting the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, the 
Exodus from Egypt, the passage of the Red Sea, and 
the promulgation of the law, prove that it was writ- 
ten prior to these events, and during the age of the 
early patriarchs. But is it to be supposed that every 
book in the sacred canon which does not refer to these 
events, was written prior to these events themselves ? 
Two things are indispensable to the conclusiveness of 
this argument, neither of which is known. The first 
is, that upon the supposition, that the author of the 
book of Job, or Job himself had lived subsequently to 
these events, he was acquainted with them ; the se- 
cond is, that upon the supposition that he was ac- 
quainted with them, they must necessarily, or even 
probably have been noticed in this book. Nor does 
the longevity of Job necessarily place him in an age 
previous to the giving of the law. That he did not 
live in so early an age as that of the longeval patri- 
archs is evident from two considerations ; in the first 
place, the reference of Bildad to the longevity of that 
age, as a peculiarity that distinguished it from his 
own, as appears from Job viii, 8, 9 : and in the second 
place, there is no evidence that the age of Job himself 



ORAL AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE. 25 

•was such as to justify the remark, that he " was old 
and full of days," unless he Uved long after the early 
patriarchs. The writer of the passage, " man that is 
born of a woman is of fetv days, and full of trouble ; 
he Cometh forth like a flower, and is cut down ; he 
fleeth also as a shadow, and continueth not,'^ cannot 
well be supposed to have lived at a period when the 
life of man was prolonged from six hundred to a thou- 
sand years. The reference to the flood as a very an- 
cient event is inconsistent with the supposition that 
Job lived anywhere near the period of those who 
walked in the " old way '^ and were " cut down out 
of time." The reference to the law of land-marks 
and pledges rather indicates also that the hero of this 
book lived after the time of Moses. 

It has also been said that there is ground for a pre- 
sumption that the art of writing was known before 
the time of Moses, in the fact that there were officers 
called shoterim among the Israelites ; and that this 
word primarily and properly means writers. The 
passage referred to, is Exodus the fifth chapter and 
sixth verse. "And Pharaoh commanded the same 
day the task-masters and the officers, saying. Ye shall 
no more give the people straw to make brick." Our 
translators translate the Hebrew word " officers," and 
most certainly the scope and sense of the passage 
would be violated by translating it " writers." Adam 
Clarke says that the shoterim "were an inferior sort 
of officers, who attended on superior officers or magis- 
trates to execute their orders." So say Patrick and 
Rosenmuller, who give at length the reasons for this 
opinion. And Mr. Poole gives the same translation, 
affirming with Rosenmuller, that the secondary mean- 
ing of the word is scribes. 

It appears therefore in a high degree probable that 



26 ORAL AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE. 

the art of writing was imparted to Moses at the giving 
of the law. The hypothesis is certainly attended with 
fewer difficulties than any other which I have met 
with. The two tables we are informed were written 
by the finger of God ; and after these were broken, 
they were re-written by the same unerring hand. 
And what additional, what overwhelming evidence 
would it offer to the Jewish people of the divine origin 
of the moral law, when these tables were presented to 
them, inscribed with mysterious and living characters ! 
If Moses himself was unacquainted with the art of 
writing before he ascended the mount, the possibility 
of collusion or deceit was precluded, and the most 
stubborn minds must have yielded implicit confidence 
in the divine legation of their lawgiver. We find that 
notwithstanding the solemnity of that memorable 
scene, a portion of the people gave themselves up to 
idolatry, even while Moses was yet communing with 
God upon the mount. After his descent with the two 
tables in his hands, as the final witness and seal of 
his errand, for a long time we hear no more of doubts, 
no more following after idols ; and is it unreasonable 
to suppose that the obstinancy of an incredulous peo- 
ple was at last vanquished by the two tables of testi- 
mony ? If you ask, why there were no demonstra- 
tions of surprise on the part of the Jewish lawgiver 
upon the revelation of this art, or on the part of the 
people at its introduction among them ; I reply, there 
may have been, though they are not recorded. And 
even if there were not, we need not wonder at this, 
when we recollect that Moses was with God forty 
days in the mount, and especially when we reflect 
upon the prodigies which nature every where dis- 
played around the people, when Sinai sent up its 



ORAL AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE. 27 

flame and smoke, and the voice of the ever-living God 
was heard amid the thmiders of the mount. 

And is it not somewhat remarkable, that, if of 
human origin, the author of so wonderful a discovery 
as that of alphabetical writing, should be so utterly 
lost in the remote ages of antiquity, that no man can 
specify the nation or even the era to which it can be 
attributed ? There is something quite as kidicrous to 
my mind, in the theories of the gradual construction 
of alphabetical letters, as there is in the systems of 
pagan cosmogony. Is it reasonable to suppose for 
example, that the old Shemitish letter D was sug- 
gested by the word door, or the old Shemitish letter 
H by the word/ence, and the Shemitish V by a hook 
or nail 7 And yet this system has very learned advo- 
cates. May we not gravely inquire whether the 
invention of letters does not exceed the powers of 
man? The learned Shuckford, though an advocate 
for the early invention of the art, says, " that men 
should immediately fall on such a project, to express 
sounds by letters, and expose to sight all that may be 
said, or thought, in about twenty characters variously 
placed, exceeds the highest notions we can have of 
the capacities with which we are endowed." It is 
truly a wonderful art. And it was perfect from the 
beginning; nor has there been any improvement from 
the days of Moses to the present day. With one 
exception all the Hebrew letters are found in the 
decalogue. Every guttural, labial, lingual, and dental 
sound is here disclosed. Nor is it less worthy of note, 
that not an instance is known in which any man, or set 
of men, ever invented the use of letters by their own 
unaided powers. 

I am not disposed therefore to receive the opinion 
that the origin of letters is lost in time ; or that the 

3 



28 ORAL AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE. 

art rose from small beginnings, and was gradually 
improved as the wants of men demanded it ; but that 
it was revealed to men by God himself. Nor is this 
at all a novel conclusion. Among the Christian fathers, 
Clemens Alexandrinus, Cyril and St. Augustin ; and 
among the moderns, Mariana, a learned Romanist, 
Dr. John Owen, Sir Charles Woollesly, Drs. Winder, 
McKnight, and others, held the opinion that Moses 
introduced the first alphabet.* 

In relation to the period when the art of writing 
was communicated to other nations, as might be well 
supposed, diiferent views have been expressed by 
different men. It is obvious that the Hebrews had no 
opportunity of communicating with other nations 
either during their forty years in the desert, or the 
time of Joshua's conquests or government. The 
period between the death of Joshua and the govern- 
ment of Samuel, as characterized by the reign of the 
Judges, was marked by great corruption and degene- 
racy. Milman, in his history of the Jews, well de- 
scribes it as " the heroic age of Jewish history, abound- 
ing in wild adventures and desperate feats of individual 
valour." During this rude and unsettled period, a 
period of above four hundred years, they were scarcely 
fitted to receive or extend instruction of any kind. 
Under the government of Samuel the literature of the 
nation may be said to have taken its rise. He founded 
a school of the Prophets ; he was the author of the 
earlier part of the life of David; and he wrote a 
treatise on civil government, which was called "the 
manner of the kingdom," for the instruction of Saul, 
the first king. David was a prince of highly culti- 
vated mind, and greatly elevated the nation in arts 
and in arms. It was not, however, until the distin- 
* Vide Winder. 



ORAL AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE. 29 

guished reign of Solomon, that the Hebrew state 
attracted the attention of the surrounding nations, and 
became as remarkable for its wisdom, as for its wealth 
and splendour. The reign of this prince was the 
zenith of Israel's glory. It was to the Hebrew nation, 
what the present century has been to Germany ; 
what the reign of Anne was to Britain ; the reign of 
Louis XIV. to France ; the Pontificate of Leo X. to 
Italy ; the reign of Augustus Cassar to Rome ; and the 
influence of Pericles to Greece. Solomon's court 
was the most splendid and enlightened court in the 
world. The whole country of Palestine was then 
classic ground. It was a time of profound peace ; 
and the people were no longer the sport of the sword 
and the pestilence. Agriculture and commerce, lucra- 
tive occupation of every kind, and unobstructed inter- 
national intercourse had rendered their land and their 
metropolis "the beauty of perfection, and the joy of 
the whole earth." Never had the nation so favora- 
ble an opportunity of forming and executing the 
noblest and most useful designs, and of extending its 
influence for the amelioration of our race. It is most 
probable that it was not until about this period that 
the knowledge of letters passed from the Hebrews to 
the Pagan world, and especially to the Phosnicians, 
the Egyptians, and the Chaldeans ; each of which had 
peculiar facilities for becoming acquainted with the 
Hebrew language.* 

The researches of able chronologists give weight 
to this opinion. David and Solomon were contem- 
poraneous with Hiram in Phoenicia ; with Hadadezer 
in Assyria ; and according to Sir Isaac Newton, with 
Sesostris in Egypt, and Cadmus in Greece. Not far 
from this period we find that letters were introduced 

* See Winder. 



30 ORAL AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE. 

into different pagan nations ; and they gradually 
became the habitation of genius and learning as they 
were more or less remote from the Holy Land. 

May we not then regard Judea as the birth place 
of letters ? Her language was a sort of universal lan- 
guage ; her central position had been reserved by the 
God of nations in his division of the earth, for the ex- 
press purpose of making her the depositary of know- 
ledge ; and her prophets, her historians, and her poets 
were eagerly sought after. She was the most power- 
ful and the most accomplished nation ; and the active, 
imposing character of her inhabitants ensured to her 
a commanding influence. Her priests were learned 
men, and their cities were like so many Universities. 
Nor is it unreasonable to believe, that to her belonged 
the distinction of serving as a model to her more bar- 
barous neighbours. 

If the press is the palladium of civilized society ; if 
letters are the great hope of its advancement, and the 
only effectual security against its return to barbarism 
and wretchedness ; what do we not owe to this now 
scattered, but once concentrated and enlightened peo- 
ple ? Whatever may be the benefits of this great art 
upon the intellectual and social character, and upon 
individual and public prosperity, may we not say, the 
honour of it belongs to the Hebrews — to Moses their 
great Lawgiver — to the Bible ? Not until this trea- 
sury of knowledge was unlocked, were the riches of 
thought diffused through the nations. It is not un- 
deserved homage to this sacred book to say, that 
philosophers and great men of other times lighted 
their torch in Zion, and the altars of learning caught 
their first spark from the flame that glowed within 
her temple. 

The tongue of man is the glory of his frame ; and 



ORAL AND WRITTEN LANGUAGE. 31 

the use of it was taught him by his Maker. These 
mysterious letters, too, are from him. When we take 
up a profitable book, we should recollect whose hand 
first inscribed the living characters. Every time we 
take our pen too, to inscribe these characters on the 
page of business, or of friendship, we should recollect 
with gratitude that we owe the wonderful art to Him 
from whom cometh down every good and perfect 
gift. 



LECTUEE II. 

THE LITERARY MERIT OF THE SCRIPTURES. 

We do not claim for the Scriptures simply the 
honour of having given the world its letters. This 
they might have done, and have left the field of litera- 
ture barren, and with all the difficulties of cultivating 
it to be overcome by the tedious toil of successive 
generations. But they open before you a "goodly 
land/' everywhere fruitful and luxuriant, and ripened 
already to a full harvest. Mountain, and meadow, 
and pure streams diversify and adorn its surface ; and 
at each step a mine is disclosed, yielding as it is ex- 
plored, new and exhaustless treasures. Who would 
not be a wayfarer amid such scenes ? 

If the Bible is of human origin, it must certainly be 
regarded as the most wonderful effort of created in- 
telligence. That there should be so perfect a book in 
so early a state of the world ; that no volume, either 
ancient, or modern, and written in the most advanced 
and cultivated condition of human society, should 
compare with this ancient record, originating in a 
comparatively rude age, is to my own mind, a fact 
not easily accounted for on the principles of infidelity. 
The world is filled with books that are the product of 
the mightiest sons of genius ; but they are sterile and 
32 



LITERARY MERIT OF THE SCRIPTURES. 33 

jejune, deformed and ungainly, in comparison with 
the riches of tliought, the extent of research, the ac- 
curacy, the grace and heauty, which distinguish the 
Bible. 

Without the Scriptures, the world would be pro- 
foundly ignorant of some of the most important and 
interesting points of historical inquiry. Within the 
narrow compass of the first few chapters in the book 
of Genesis, we are furnished with a distinct and con- 
nected history of more than two thousand of the ear- 
liest years of time. The narrative of Moses completely 
covers that period of history, which with other nations 
is called fabulous, and which is merged in the regions 
of fabrication and conjecture. There are no ages of 
uncertainty here — no regions of fable — ^no chasm. 
From the first dawn of the creation down to the cap- 
ture of Babylon by Cyrus, the entire period is filled 
up with events, the effects of which are widely ex- 
tended over the earth and are visible to the present 
hour. 

There are multitudes of facts and phenomena, both 
in the natural and moral world, that never could be 
accounted for, but for the Mosaic history ; while a 
slight acquaintance with that history shows us how 
exactly it is accordant with the existing state of things 
both in the physical and moral creation. The history 
of the creation of the material universe, about which 
so much has been written by wise men, whose specu- 
lations are only indicative of their own folly, is here 
given so succinctly, and so philosophically, that all 
the quibbles of infidelity, and all the researches of 
natural science, instead of invalidating, have only 
served to strengthen and confirm our confidence that 
the narrator was supernaturally taught of God. 

The ancient account of the creation of the world 



34 THE LITERARY MERIT 

among the Chaldeans was, that there was a time 
when all was water and darkness, and in these were 
contained the original elements of all future existence ; 
that a woman was the great presiding mind; that 
Bel us clove her asunder, and formed earth of the one 
part, and heaven of the other ; that he divided the 
darkness, separated earth from heaven, and arranged 
the order of the universe ; that he then ordered one 
of the gods to cut off his head, to mix the blood which 
flowed from the wound with earth, and of this mixed 
mass to form men and animals ; and that after this, 
he framed the stars and planets, and thus finished the 
production of all things. This account is indeed suf- 
ficiently ridiculous, and yet is it the sober narrative 
of Berosus, who was a priest in the temple of Belus 
at Babylon, who lived in the time of Alexander the 
Great, and was the author of the history of Chaldea. 
The Phoenician Theogony of Sanchoniatho is still 
more ludicrous, and too absurd to be narrated in an 
intelligent assembly ; it may be found in Eusebius, 
and Winder's History of Knowledge. The Egyptian 
account as given by Diodorus Siculus, was that all 
beings originally existed in a chaotic state ; that the 
sun and stars were formed by the continual agitation 
of the air ascending upwards; that the gross and 
earthy matter sunk below, and was gradually made 
hard by the heat of the sun ; that animals were 
created from the heat and moisture, and eventually 
perpetuated, each, its own species. And what was 
the Theogony of the Greeks — the learned Greeks ? 
I may not utter it for its debasing impurities. Com- 
pared with these, and others such as these, how 
simple, how rational the narrative of Moses. " In 
the beginning God created the heavens and the earth !" 
Here is a cause equal to the wonderful effect, while 



OF THE SCRIPTURES. 35 

every view of the effect leads to adoring admiration 
of the power, wisdom and goodness of the mighty- 
Author. 

The formation of man too with all his full grown 
powers of body and of mind — his primeval rectitude, 
federal character, and fall — the promise of a Saviour 
and his predicted victories — the patriarchal age — the 
deluge — the foundation of the new world — the settle- 
ment of the mother country — the division of the 
earth — the confusion of tongues, and the dispersion — 
the early settlement of Egypt — the rise and fall of the 
Assyrian Empire, even to the names of all its succes- 
sive princes from the first to the last — the origin, 
peculiarities and overthrow of the Hebrew State — 
the progress and decline of Canaan, Persia, and 
Media, are all familiar topics of biblical history. 
Ancient cities too — Thebes, the No-Ammi of Nahum 
— Nineveh, Jerusalem, Babylon, with all that rendered 
them the wonders of the world, would be traced to 
the remote darkness of the fabulous age, but for the 
Old Testament. The only authentic history of these 
remote events and kingdoms, is in the Pentateuch and 
in the Prophets. Before the days of Moses, there 
were no historical records either in Assyria, Egypt, 
Phoenicia, Chaldea, or Greece. No other historian 
lived at so remote a period as the exodus from Egypt. 
Dr. Winder shows at considerable length, that Moses 
is the only man who had any considerable materials 
for Egyptian history ; as the ancient learning of 
Egypt must have been chiefly lost by the excision of 
the first born and the disasters of the Red Sea. Since 
the priests, the more common depositaries of learning, 
usually attended in their wars, the people who were 
left behind must have been chiefly the common 
people; so that for a long time after this disaster, 



36 THE LITERARY MERIT 

Egypt was involved in ignorance and darkness ; nor 
is this nation subsequently mentioned in the Hebrew- 
Scriptures, until the reign of Solomon. " Moses was 
the father of history." Infidels have affirmed, there 
were astronomical calculations in Babylon, that 
reached back to a period much farther than the 
Mosaic history ; which therefore, if true, invalidate 
the entire account given by Moses. This assertion 
has received a very conclusive refutation from the 
astronomical calculations of Bedford. But there is a 
fact stated by Gillies, in his history of Greece, that 
confirms the calculations of Bedford. This historian 
states, that after the conquest of Babylon by Alexan- 
der, he "eagerly demanded the astronomical calcula- 
tions that had been carefully preserved in that ancient 
capital about nineteen centuries. By the order of 
Alexander they were faithfully transcribed and trans- 
mitted to Aristotle,'^ who was the preceptor of this 
prince ; and " they remounted to twenty-two hundred 
and thirty-four years beyond the Christian era," a 
period not even so remote as the deluge. There is 
no history that can be so safely relied on, or that is so 
ancient, as the Mosaic history. Every other attempt 
at history until the reigns of David and Solomon, is 
but a mass of shapeless re-arranged tradition, as cor- 
rupt as it is fabulous. Long after this time indeed, 
the pages of writers esteemed the most authentic, are 
disfigured by absurd and disgusting fictions. This 
defect in the annals of earlier times must be every- 
where and deeply felt, if we exclude the information 
obtained from the Bible. There only is the deficiency 
supplied. Sanchoniatho, Berosus, Ctesias and Manetho 
are the oldest human historians ; but " Moses was 
five hundred years before the first, and more than a 
thousand before the last." 



OF THE SCRIPTURES. 37 

It deserves also to be remembered that the chro- 
nology of the Bible is definite. The most authentic 
ancient historians abound with chronological inconsis- 
tencies. Sir Isaac Newton has clearly detected great 
errors in the system of pagan chronology by bringing 
his powerful mind to the study of the Bible.* The 
authors of profane history are greatly indebted in this 
particular to the chronology of the Scriptures. By a 
careful comparison of its history with its prophecies, 
a standard is formed by which the chronological 
errors of pagan historians have been rectified, and 
the order of a great multitude of dates and events 
satisfactorily determined. Nor is the facility of doing 
this at all diminished by the discrepancy between the 
chronology of the Hebrew and Samaritan texts and 
the Septuagint. Geography and chronology have 
been well called the "two eyes of history." Nor 
can our notions of history be otherwise than ex- 
ceedingly confused, where the series of events does 
not lie before us in the due and proper order of 
time. 

What adds peculiar interest to the historical notices 
of the Scriptures, is that they are so replete with in- 
struction on the great and important subject of efficient 
and final causes, as well as moral causes generally. 
They bring forward in bold relief the superintendent 
and all-governing providence of the Most High : — as 
in the history of Joseph, the revolt of the ten tribes, 
and the books of Esther and Daniel. They exhibit a 
luminous picture of the human character in every age 
and country with which they are conversant : — as in 
the history of the antediluvian world, and the entire 



*For information on this subject, see the different Encyclopaedias, 
Bedford's Chronology, and Winder. 



88 THE LITERARY MERIT 

history of the Jewish nation. They present a history 
of the divine purposes and the divine government, and 
every where illustrate the great truth, that " there is 
a God that judgeth in the earth,'' and that he 
** worketh all things after the counsel of his own will." 
They furnish a history of the church for more than 
four thousand years. They present as their great 
subject the all-absorbing work of Redemption. They 
have an object which they never lose sight of; a cause 
to which they are always subservient; principles 
which are developed with some new accession of 
strength and beauty on every page; a Hero, not of 
mortal nature,whomthey every where honour ; a deity, 
not of the poet's creation, whom they worship with 
a pure ritual, and to whom they ascribe eternal praise. 
Nor need we hesitate in saying, that no work pos- 
sesses such literary merit generally, and has equal 
claims to be considered as the standard of a polished 
and useful literature. The characteristic style of the 
Bible is, that it is always adapted to the subjects of 
which it speaks. A chaste, terse, nervous diction 
distinguishes all its compositions. It is strongly 
marked by its simplicity, its strength, and often its 
unrivalled sublimity and beauty. Its words and 
figures, though not a few of the latter are altogether 
new, and probably never would have been thought 
of except by the inspired mind who conceived them, 
and are even symbolical and hieroglyphic, when once 
presented, are seen and felt to accord with the fami- 
liar conceptions of men. Its manner of writing with 
regard to the choice and arrangement of words, is at 
all times dignified and serious, and at a great remove 
from the pomp and parade of artificial ornament. 
Everywhere we see that its great object is to inculcate 
truth, and that it uses words only to clothe and ren- 



OF THE SCRIPTURES. 39 

der impressive the thoughts it would convey. There 
is both rhetoric and inspiration in the Bible ; but amid 
all the boldness and felicity of its inventions, there is 
no overdoing — no making the most of every thing — no 
needless comment — but every thing is plain, concise, 
and unaffectedly simple. 

In the historical compositions of the Scriptures, we 
have the most simple, natural, affecting, and well told 
narratives in the world. Witness the history of Abra- 
ham, Isaac, and Jacob and his family — the recapitula- 
tions in Deuteronomy — the narratives of Ezra and Ne- 
hemiah — the story of the Saviour's trial and crucifixion, 
and the life of the Apostle Paul. For fidelity and impar- 
tiality, for unvarnished truth, for the choice of matter, 
for unity, concise and graphic descriptions of charac- 
ter, and above all, usefulness, the historical parts of 
the Bible are without a parallel. No critic can say 
of them, " They are too monotonous — too word^^ — or 
too uniformly stately, tragical and emphatic.'^ The 
characters walk and breathe. They are nature, and 
nothing but nature. By a single stroke of the pencil 
you often have their portrait. You see them. You 
hear them. Every scene in which you behold them 
is a fit subject for the painter. And does it not deserve 
remark, that the finest subjects for historic painting 
within the entire circle of the Fine Arts have been 
selected from the Scriptures ? Such are Lot and his 
two daughters hastened by the angels out of Sodom, 
and the Finding of Moses on the Nile, by Rembrandt 
— Moses striking the Rock, by Poussin — The Deluge, 
by Trumbull — Belshazzar's Feast, by Martin — The 
Transfiguration and the Madonna, by Raphael — Moses 
receiving the Law — Abraham and Isaac, at the foot of 
the mountain — Paul's Shipwreck — Christ Rejected — 
and Death on the Pale Horse, by West, — the Last 

4 



40 THE LITEKARY MERIT 

Supper, by Da Vinci — Christ in the Garden, by Giiido 
— the Fall of the Damned — and the Resurrection of 
the Just, by Rubens. Raphael, the first painter in 
the world, who was employed so extensively by Leo 
X., painted chiefly scriptural subjects. His famous 
Cartoons are all scriptural themes. Nor may it be 
denied, that these and other similar subjects have 
been selected with inimitable judgment and taste. 
None knew better how to make or prize the selection, 
than these illustrious artists ; for none brought to the 
selection minds better furnished or more intensely 
devoted to the object. I look upon it as no unmean- 
ing compliment to the Bible, that the best artists 
have awarded to it this distinguished honour ; and one 
reason why they have done so, obviously is, that 
profane history furnishes no such themes. 

Nor do I know any thing to equal the didactic and 
argumentative parts of the Scriptures, especially as 
they are presented in some of the Prophets, in the dis- 
courses of our Saviour, and the epistles of Paul. 
Read the instructions of the greatest of all teachers to 
Nicodemus ; advert to his conversation with the wo- 
man of Samaria ; study his argument to the complain- 
ing Jews in the temple, and to the deceived multitude 
that followed him across the sea to Capernaum ; turn 
to his discourse to the people at Nazareth, and then 
read his farewell address to his disciples. Where will 
you find so rich a vein of thought, argument, and 
alternate rebuke and tenderness ? There is nothing 
in the compositions of Addison, the most neat and 
nervous of all the English classics, to be compared 
with these, or with the Sermon on the Mount. Nor 
is there anything in the finest orations and treatises 
of the most celebrated masters of antiquity, so elo- 
quent as the glowing prediction of the great Apostle 



OP THE SCIUPTURES. 41 

of the restoration of his countrymen, or his triumphant 
argument for the resurrection, or his bold and exqui- 
sitely wrought description of the privileges of the people 
of God. You recollect how he closes the first. " 
the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and know- 
ledge of God ! how unsearchable are his judgments, 
and his ways past finding out. For who hath known 
the mind of the Lord ? Or who hath been his coun- 
sellor ? Or who hath first given to him, and it shall 
be recompensed to him again ? For of him, and 
through him, and to him are all things : to whom be 
glory forever !" I cannot do justice to his illustration 
and argument relative to the second, without rehears- 
ing a part of it. " All flesh is not the same flesh : 
but there is one kind of flesh of men, another flesh of 
beasts, another of fishes, and another of birds. There 
are also celestial bodies, and bodies terrestrial : but the 
glory of the celestial is one, and the glory of the ter- 
restrial is another. There is one glory of the sun, and 
another glory of the moon, and another glory of the 
stars : for one star differeth from another star in glory. 
So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in 
corruption, it is raised in incorruption ; it is sown in 
dishonour, it is raised in glory ; it is sown in weak- 
ness, it is raised in power ; it is sown a natural body, 
it is raised a spiritual body. The first man is of the 
earth, earthy ; the second man is the Lord from hea- 
ven. As is the earthy, such are they also that are 
earthy ; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that 
are heavenly. And as we have borne the image of 
the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the hea- 
venly. Now this I say, that flesh and blood cannot 
inherit the kingdom of God ; neither doth corruption 
inherit incorruption. Behold I shew you a mystery : 
We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed iu 



42 THE LITERARY MERIT 

a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last 
trump : for the trumpet shall sound and the dead shall 
be raised incorruptible, and we shall he changed. 
For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this 
mortal immortality. So when this corruptible shall 
have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have 
put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the 
saying that is written, death is swallowed up in 
victory. death, where is thy sting? grave, 
where is thy victory ? The sting of death is sin, and 
the strength of sin is the law ; but thanks be to God, 
which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus 
Christ !" When this author first presented these 
epistles to the world, I have no doubt they produced 
impressions of the deepest interest, if not of high 
astonishment. Some of you can recollect the emotions 
with which you read them more than twenty years 
ago ; and they excite the same emotions still, except 
that they are more enlightened and vigorous. You 
well recollect also the close of his description of the 
privileges of the children of God : " And we know 
that all things work together for good to them that 
love God, to them who are the called according to his 
purpose. For w^hom he did foreknow, he also did 
predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son^ 
that he might be the first born among many brethren. 
Moreover whom he did predestinate, them he also 
called ; and whom he called, them he also justified ; 
and whom he justified, them he also glorified. What 
shall we say then to these things ? If God be for us, 
who can be against us ? He that spared not his own 
Son, but freely delivered him up for us all, how shall 
he not with him also freely give us all things ? Who 
shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect ? It is 
God that justifieth. Who is he that condemneth ? It 



OF THE SCRIPTURES. 43 

is Christ that died, yea rather that is risen again, who 
is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh 
intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the 
love of Christ ? Shall tribulation or distress, or per- 
secution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword ? 
Nay, in all these things, we are more than conquerors 
through him that loved us. For I am persuaded that 
neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, 
nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 
nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature shall be 
able to separate us from the love of God which is in. 
Christ Jesus our Lord." 

There is a noble specimen of lofty argument and 
expostulation also in one of the early books of the 
Old Testament which I may not pass over in silence. 
'^ Gird up thy loins now like a man. I will demand 
of thee, and declare thou unto me. Wilt thou also 
disannul my j adgments ? Wilt thou condemn me 
that thou mayest be righteous ? Hast thou an arm 
hke God ? or canst thou thunder with a voice like 
him ? Deck thyself now with majesty and excellency, 
and array thyself with glory and beauty. Cast abroad 
the rage of thy wrath, and behold every one that is 
proud and abase him. Look on every one that is 
proud and bring him low, and tread down the wicked 
in their place. Hide them in the dust together, bind 
their faces in secret. Then will I also confess unto 
thee, that thine own right hand can save thee !" 
There are several fine points in this passage, but none 
more exquisitely fine than this, — " Cast abroad the 
rage of thy wrath, and behold every one that is proud, 
and abase him ! Look on every one that is proud, 
and bring him low !" It is a lofty challenge from 
God to the arrogance and power of man. how 
impotent compared with the Almighty One ! There 



44 THE LITERARY MERIT 

needs but a look from God to level the proudest 
worm. I know not where to find passages of equal 
force, sublimity, and simphcity out of the Bible. 
And they are but specimens from almost innumerable 
passages equally brilliant. There is no vapidness in 
such passages as these, which palls on the taste. 
Their flowers do not fade, nor does their fruit lose its 
freshness. The sacred writers differ in this respect 
from all others. These dissertations have long been 
published to the world ; but they have lost none of 
their power, none of their grandeur and beauty. 
They are always new, and more and more deeply 
interest a classical mind, the oftener they are read 
and the better they are known. No matter how often 
you read them, the last perusal leaves the highest 
relish behind it. 

One of the most eminent critics has said, that 
" devotional poetry cannot please." If it be so, then 
has the Bible " carried the dominion of poetry into 
regions that are inaccessible to worldly ambition." 
It has " crossed the enchanted circle," and by the 
beauty, boldness, and originality of its conceptions, 
has given to devotional poetry a glow, a richness, a 
tenderness, in vain sought for in Shakspeare or Cow- 
per, in Scott or Byron. Where is there poetry that 
can be compared with the song of Moses at his victory 
over Pharaoh ; with the Psalms of David ; with the 
Song of Solomon, and with the prophecies of Isaiah ? 
Where is there an elegiac ode to be compared with 
the song of David upon the death of Saul and Jona- 
than, or the Lamentations of Jeremiah ? Where, in 
ancient or modern poetry, is there a passage like this ? 
"In thoughts from the visions of the night, when 
deep sleep falleth on men, fear came upon me and 
.trembling, which made all my bones to shake. Then 



OF THE SCRIPTURES. 45 

a spirit passed before my face ; the hair of my flesh 
stood up. — It stood still, but I could not discern the 
form thereof An image was before mine eyes, 
There was silence. And I heard a voice saying. 
Shall mortal man be more just than God ? shall a man 
be more pure than his Maker ? Behold he put no 
trust in his servants, and his angels he charged with 
folJy. How much less in them that dwell in houses 
of clay, whose foundation is in the dust and who are 
crushed before the moth V' Men who have felt the 
power of poetry, when they have marked the " deep 
worknig passion of Dante," and observed the eleva- 
tion of Milton as he " combined image with image in 
lofty gradation," have thought that they discovered 
the indebtedness of these writers to the poetry of the 
Old Testament. But how much more subUme is 
Isaiah, than Milton ! How much more enkindling 
than Dante, is David ! How much more picturesque 
than Homer is Solomon, or Job ! Like the rapid, 
glowing argumentations of Paul, the poetic parts of 
the Bible may be read a thousand times, and they 
have all the freshness and glow of the first perusal. 
Where, in the compass of human language, is there a 
paragraph, which, for boldness and variety of meta- 
phor, delicacy and majesty of thought, strength and 
invention, elegance and refinement, equals the passage 
in which God answers Job out of the whirlwind ? 
What merely human imagination, in the natural pro- 
gress of a single discourse, and apparently without 
eflbrt, ever thus went down to " the foundations of 
the earth" — stood at "the doors of the ocean" — 
visited " the place where the day-spring from on high 
takes hold of the uttermost parts of the earth" — 
entered into " the treasures of the snow and the 
hail " — traced the path of the thunder-bolt — and, 



46 THE LITERARY MERIT 

penetrating the retired chambers of nature, demanded^ 
" Hath the rain a father ? or who hath begotten the 
drops of the dew V And how bold its flights, how 
inexpressibly striking and beautiful its antitheses, 
when from the warm and sweet Pleiades, it wanders 
to the sterner Orion, and in its rapid course, hears the 
"young lions crying unto, God for lack of meat^' — 
sees the war-horse pawing in the valley — descries 
the eagle on the crag of the rock — and in all that is 
vast and minute, dreadful and beautiful, discovers 
and proclaims the glory of Him who is "excellent in 
counsel and wonderful in working ?'^ The style of 
Hebrew poetry is everywhere forcible and figurative 
beyond example. The book of Job stands not alone 
in this sententious, spirited and energetic form and 
manner. It prevails throughout the poetic part of 
the Scriptures ; aad they stand confessedly the most 
eminent examples to be found of the truly sublime 
and beautiful. I confess I have not much of the 
feeling of poetry. It is a fire that is enkindled at 
" the living lamp of nature,'^ and glows only on a few 
favoured altars. And yet I cannot but love the poetic 
associations of the Bible. Now, they are sublime and 
beautiful, like the mountain torrent, swollen and im- 
petuous by the sudden bursting of the cloud. Now 
they are grand and awful as the stormy sea of Galilee, 
when the tempest beats upon the fearful disciples. 
And again, they are placid as that calm lake when the 
Saviour's feet have pressed upon its waters and stilled 
them into peace. 

There is also a sublimity, an invention in the 
imagery of the Bible that is found in no other book. 
Here you see " a land shadowing with wings " — a 
"star coming out of Jacob, and a sceptre arising out 
of Israel " — the " lion of the tribe of Judah " — and 



OF THE SCRIPTURES. 47 

the "tongue of the Egyptian Sea." — You read of 
"New Jerusalem coming down from God out of 
heaven " — of a " rainbow round about the throne '^ — 
of a " sea of glass " — and of a " woman clothed with 
the sun, and the moon under her feet.'^ Here you 
have allegory, apologue, parable and enigma, all 
clearly understood and enforcing truth with a strong 
and indelible impression. Here you have significant 
actions uttering volumes of instruction; as when 
" Jesus called a little child and set him in the midst 
of his disciples and said, Except ye be converted and 
become as little children, ye shall not enter into the 
kingdom of heaven " — as when he cursed the barren 
fig-tree — as when he " washed his disciples' feet." 
And where is there a comparison like this, — " And 
the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled 
together." Where is there a description like this, — 
" And I saw an angel standing in the sun — and he 
cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that 
fly in the midst of heaven. Come and gather your- 
selves together unto the supper of the great God." 
Or where is there a sentence like the following, — 
" And I saw a great white throne, and him that sat on 
it, from whose face the earth and the heaven fled 
away, and there was found no place for them." 

English literature is no common debtor to the Bible. 
In what department of English literature may not the 
difference be discovered between the spirit and senti- 
ments of Christian writers and those who have draAvn 
all their materials of thought and of ornament from 
pagan writers? In the language of an anonymous 
writer, " Not to say that antiquity furnishes no exam- 
ple of a philosopher who could think like Newton ; 
or a moralist who could illustrate human obligation 
hke Edwards or Johnson ; we find a proof of the 



48 THE LITERARY MERIT 

superiority of Christian principles even in those works 
of imagination which are deemed scarcely susceptible 
of influence from religion. The common romance 
and the novel, with all their fooleries and ravings, 
would be more contemptible than they are, did they 
not sometimes undesignedly catch a conception, or 
adorn a character from the rich treasury of revelation. 
And the more splendid fictions of the poet derive 
their highest charm from the evangelical philanthropy, 
tenderness and sublimity that invest them. But for 
the Bible, Homer and Milton might have stood upon 
the same shelf, equals in morality, as they are compe- 
titors for renown. Young had been ranked with 
Juvenal ; and Cowper had united with Horace and 
with Ovid, to swell the tide of voluptuousness." 

There is not a finer character nor a finer description 
in all the works of Walter Scott, than that of Rebekah 
in Ivanhoe. And who does not see that it owes its 
excellence to the Bible ? Shakspeare, Byron and 
Southey are not a little indebted for some of their 
best scenes and inspirations to the same source. At 
the suggestion of a valued friend, I have turned my 
thoughts to the parallel between Macbeth and Ahab — 
between Lady Macbeth and Jezebel — between the 
announcement to Macduff" of the murder of his family, 
and that to David of the death of Absalom by Joab — 
to the parallel between the opening of the lamenta- 
tions of Jeremiah, and Byron's apostrophe to Rome 
as the Niobe of nations — to the parallel betwen his 
ode to Napoleon, and Isaiah's ode on the fall of Sen- 
nacherib — and also to the resemblance between 
Southey's chariot of Carmala in the Curse of Kehama, 
and Ezekiel's vision of the wheels ; and I have been 
forcibly impressed with the obligations of this class 
of writers to the sacred Scriptures. 



OF THE SCRIPTURES. 49 

May it not be doubted whether scholars have been 
sufficiently sensible of their obligations to our common 
English Bible ? It is the purest specimen of Enghsh, 
or Anglo-Saxon, to be found in the world. It was 
made by the order of James the I. in 1607, by forty- 
seven of the most able and learned men of Westmin- 
ster, Oxford, and Cambridge. It has stood the test 
of two hundred and thirty years' experience, and is 
a noble monument of the integrity, fidelity, and 
learning of its venerable translators. Addison re- 
marks, " There is a certain coldness in the phrases of 
European languages, compared with the oriental 
forms of speech. The English tongue has received 
innumerable improvements from an infusion of He- 
braisms, derived out of the poetical passages in holy 
writ. They warm and animate our language, give it 
force and energy, and convey our thoughts in ardent 
and intense phrases. There is something in this kind 
of diction that often sets the mind in a flame and 
makes our hearts burn within us.'' Nor has it been 
at all improved by American philologists. Was it 
too much for a learned commentator to say, " Our 
translators have not only made a standard translation; 
but they have made their translation the standard of 
our language. The English tongue in their day 
was not equal to such a work. But God enabled 
them to stand as upon Mount Sinai, and crane up 
their country's language to the dignity of the originals; 
so that after the lapse of two hundred years, the 
English Bible, with very few exceptions, is the stan- 
dard of the purity and excellence of the English 
tongue." 

The Bible has also been the instrument of preserv- 
ing and diffusing classical learning among the most 
polished and literary nations. On the subversion of 



50 THE LITERARY MERIT 

her fairest temples, ofttimes has literature taken refuge 
in the asylums of Christianity. Since the ark that 
once contained and preserved this sacred book was 
destroyed, this hallowed volume has been itself the 
ark in which were contained and preserved for the 
long night of a thousand years, and amid the rude 
assaults of barbarous nations, "the treasures of wisdom 
and knowledge." More than once, when ignorance 
has enslaved the human mind, has the Bible stricken 
oif its fetters. The Scriptures constrain men to be 
learned. So that while on the one hand, literature 
has nothing to lose, but much to gain from the Bible, 
the Bible has much to gain, and nothing to lose from 
a solid literature. "A little learning,'^ says Lord 
Bacon, " tendeth to atheism ; but more bringeth us 
back to religion.'^ It is for the interests of religion 
to encourage the pursuit of science and literature in 
every form and department. The more the Bible is 
brought to the test of intellectual research, the more 
abundant will be the evidence of its superiority. 
From the comparative study of languages, from the 
natural history of the human race, from the whole 
circle of natural sciences, from early history, from 
oriental literature, from the most rigid scrutiny of its 
most acute and learned enemies, it has nothing to 
fear. The ignorance of its friends may give its 
enemies a short-lived triumph ; but it shall be as 
ignoble, as it is momentary ; and the weapons by 
which it has been accomplished shall be broken and 
thrown back, recoiling on the heads of those who 
wield them. Should some future Julian arise, who 
should debar the friends of the Bible the lights of 
science, the unbelieving world, and the powers of 
darkness might be emboldened to assail it with new 
confidence. But I trust in God that time is past. 



OF THE SCRIPTURES. 51 

And were it possible that the world could again be 
subjected to the caprice of a single man, and receive 
its laws from a despot, Jesus Christ is, as he ever has 
been, " Head over all things to the church," and will 
make all things subservient to her interests. The 
power of despots shall be extended or diminished, as 
it shall ultimately extend or diminish the power of 
the gospel. Wise men of the East shall again offer 
incense to the child of Mary. The Scribe and the 
Rabbi shall yet wreathe garlands for the ark of the 
covenant. The science of France and the learning 
of Germany shall become as truly tributary to the 
cause of truth and holiness, as was the gold of Ophir. 
And the most illustrious classics of antiquity shall 
gather their freshest bays to adorn the temples once 
crowned with thorns. 

If it were for nothing but their literary merit there- 
fore, these Scriptures claim the earnest attention of 
the young. I know of no standard by which the 
character of literary and scientific men may be so 
safely and successfully formed. The more he reads, 
the more, I am confident, an accomplished scholar 
will study the Bible. There are no finer English 
scholars than the men educated north of the Tweed. 
And there are none who, from their childhood, are so 
well acquainted with the Bible. I have heard it 
said that the characteristic wit of Scotchmen is attri- 
butable to their early familiarity with the Proverbs 
of Solomon. No well informed man, no well educated 
family is ignorant of the Bible. We can better afford 
to part with every other book from our family libraries, 
our schools, and colleges, than this finished production 
of the infinite Mind. 



LECTUEE III. 

THE OBLIGATIONS OF LEGISLATIVE SCIENCE TO THE 
BIBLE. 

Our last lecture expatiated upon the literary merit 
of the sacred writings. We purpose at the present 
opportunity, to contemplate the influence this re- 
markable book has exerted upon human laws, upon 
the science of legislation, and the great principles of 
jurisprudence. From the nature of the subject, it 
will be seen that it will more tax the sober thought 
of my audience, than the previous lecture, if it does 
not even trespass somewhat upon their patience. 

As a general remark, it is no doubt true, that, like 
every other science, law has advanced gradually to 
its present state of improvement. But this remark is 
to be received with some qualification. That the 
Mosaic code was the first written law ever delivered 
to any nation no man will deny. And yet it was 
delivered in a state of high perfection. 

Theoretical philosophers who have set aside, or 
forgotten the inspiration of the Scriptures, have taught 
that the earlier codes of law, — codes designed for 
men in their wildest state, and at a period of the 
world when their wants were few and simple, their 
rights acknowledged, and their crimes had scarcely 
52 



LEGISLATIVE SCIENCE. 53 

begun to be flagitious, — were necessarily very limited 
and very imperfect. They tell us that the first regu- 
lations of human society were those domestic rules 
which the lather of a family would have occasion to 
observe in the control of his household. When men 
began to unite in villages and cities, these more pri- 
vate regulations would be found inadequate to restrain 
a more numerous society ; and a body of rules, as 
well as an authority accompanied by greater power 
than the paternal, became necessary. They tell us, 
that afterwards, when towns and cities united for 
their common convenience and defence, the judicial 
regulations necessarily became multiplied; and the 
supreme authority from which they emanated, and 
by which they were to be enforced, issued sooner or 
later in diiferent forms of magistracy. And as the 
conduct of the wisest and most just men would natu- 
rally suggest a rule of conduct to others, so their 
counsels and advice would gradually acquire force, 
and be adopted as a general regulation. And hence 
they tell us, that sages and philosophers were the first 
authors of laws. 

Now, all this proceeds upon an entirely gratuitous 
assumption ; an assumption as contrary to sober, 
uninspired history, as it is to the word of God. That 
assumption is " that the original state of man was 
exceedingly degraded; that he occupied a rank at 
first, little, if any, above the beasts of the field : and 
that having by his own exertions gradually escaped 
from the state of brutality in which he was originally 
found, he is in a constant course of improvement." 
How far this hypothesis is at variance with facts, I 
leave believers, and indeed I might say, unbelievers, 
in divine revelation to determine. Since the fall of 
man from that state of primeval integrity and blessed- 



54 LEGISLATIVE SCIENCE. 

ness in which he was created, unaided by wisdom 
and laws revealed from heaven, the invariable ten- 
dency of his nature has been to sink deeper and deeper 
into darkness and lawless corruption. Hence God 
gave him law at his first creation ; and by oral com- 
munications from heaven, guided and instructed him 
for the first twenty -five hundred years, until he gave 
the Hebrew nation their memorable code from Mount 
Sinai. 

*'If the foundations be destroyed, what can the 
righteous do ?" The enactment of wise laws, and the 
due administration of justice in any community, are 
so intimately interwoven with its best interests, and of 
such acknowledged importance, that they need not 
become the topics of remark. Law is the measure of 
right. It gives every man a rule of action, and pre- 
scribes a course of conduct which entitles him to the 
support and protection of society. It teaches men to 
know when they commit injury, and when they suffer 
it. Every just law is dictated by reason and bene- 
volence. Of the authority to command and the obliga- 
tion to obedience, the foundation, or principle, is the 
happiness of those to whom the rule is directed. 
" Salus populi suprema lex." None will doubt that 
the goodness of all laws depends upon their intrinsic 
rectitude and benevolent influence. 

" The hand of time has been passing over the 
mighty fabric of human laws for four thousand years ;" 
and yet little has been added to the stock of legal 
science, and little change has been made in the most 
improved principles of human jurisprudence since the 
days of Moses. As might have been justly supposed, 
there have been great improvements in commercial 
law, because the Hebrews were an agricultural, and 
not extensively a commercial people. And there have 



LEGISLATIVE SCIENCE. 55 

been improvements in international law, because the 
Hebrews were, by divine command, separated from 
other nations. Laws also have been changed by the 
condition of the countries for which they have been 
enacted ; they have been extended in their specifica- 
tions ; they have been modified by the character, 
customs, religion, soil, position, and pursuits of different 
nations ; but the fundamental principles, the great out- 
Une of legislative science, are found in the civil polity 
of the Jews. The last four books of the Pentateuch 
contain the foundations of all wise legislation. 

We have in the first instance the Moral Law, com- 
prised within the short compass of ten command- 
ments. This law contains the nucleus, the germ of 
all moral obligation, enforcing the claims of the one 
only living and true God, as the autocrat of the He- 
brew nation, and at the same time presenting a com- 
prehensive statement of the duties which man owes to 
his fellow man. It was given, not through the inter- 
mediate ministry of their legislator, but directly to the 
assembled nation ; not by the voice of angels, but by 
the voice of the Almighty Lawgiver. It was stamped 
as his own, and he imparted to it a sacredness and 
authority suited to its high pre-eminence. 

" Concerning thy testimonies," says the Psalmist, 
" I have known that thou hast founded them for ever. 
I esteem all thy precepts concerning all things to be 
right." The moral law is built upon firm and im- 
mutable foundations. It was not imposed by arbitrary 
will, but corresponds to truth, to the nature of intelli- 
gent beings, and the relations they sustain toward God 
and one another. It is adapted to all times, and 
places, and intelligences ; is without change, or abate- 
ment ; and is alike fitted to earth and to heaven. It 
requires what human laws may not require, perfect 
5* 



56 LEGISLATIVE SCIENCE. 

holiness ; and it forbids what man may not forbid, all 
sin. It has a province with which no human code 
may interfere ; for it controls the heart. 

It may deserve inquiry, whether the moral law of 
the ten commandments was merely a moral law for 
the private government of individuals. Was it not a 
law contemplating man as about forming a community ; 
and laying down certain rules, not merely fit for indi- 
vidual conscience, but also the indispensable requisites 
of a social state ? In this sense, they are not merely 
rules of conduct as to internal conscience, and which 
make men responsible to God; but rules of social 
existence, without which human society cannot con- 
tinue, and which make men responsible to the state. 
Do they not embody, both rules of conscience and the 
great principles of union among men, and constitute 
the vital basis of social organization ? These ten 
commandments are indeed a wonderful code. So 
comprehensive a summary of the indispensable prin- 
ciples of a social state, and so wonderful a summary 
of moral duty, never could have been of human in- 
vention. This great moral code deserves to stand at 
the head of ah the Mosaic institutions, and through 
the people to whom it was originally proclaimed, to 
address its claims to all the nations of men. 

Next to this great moral law, there are what may 
be called the Civil or Political Laws. They differ 
from the moral law in several important particulars ; 
but in none more than this, that they do not require 
absolute perfection, nor forbid all sin. In other and 
plainer language, they tolerate what is wrong, and 
what the moral law does not tolerate. They tolerate 
imperfection at heart ; for they do not profess to reach 
the heart. That is done by another law, and by no 
mere civil, political code. They tolerate imperfection 



LEGISLATIVE SCIENCE. 57 

in the life ; for no system of human legislation, even 
though God were its author, would ever attempt to 
secure even a perfectly blameless exterior. Hence 
there were usages in the Hebrew nation which were 
inconsistent with the moral law, and with the gene- 
ral scope and spirit of the divine oracles, which the 
civil code of the Old Testament did not prohibit to the 
Hebrew people. 

Great complaint has been made against the Old Tes- 
tament for these connivances; but great injustice has 
been done to it in this particular. We have said, 
that every just law is dictated in wisdom. But while 
it is indispensable to the due administration of justice, 
that no law should be unjust, it is not indispensable 
that every just law which may be thought of should 
be enacted. A civil code may legislate too much, as 
well as too little. The object of a law should always 
be attainable, and always of sufficient importance to 
demand its enactment. It may be to a high degree 
fit and proper that men, as citizens, should do right in 
every thing ; while it may not be fit and proper, that 
any system of mere human legislation should require 
absolute perfection in human conduct. This, as has 
been before remarked, is the province of a moral, and 
not a civil code. This is the province of the divine 
Lawgiver, acting as the moral Governor of men, and 
not of human legislation. He must do this, or his 
law would not be holy, just and good, nor commend 
itself to the conscience. He cannot do less, however 
extensive his empire, and however remote the period 
of time, or ages of eternity to which his government 
is extended. The great peculiarity of his moral 
government is, that it is a perfect government, con- 
niving at no kind or degree of wickedness, and ad- 
justing penalty to crime with that perfect precisioa 



58 LEGISLATIVE SCIENCE. 

and exactness of moral balance, that is in all cases 
proportioned to the measure of its ill desert. But 
this is not the work of human legislation, unless men 
may legislate for God, and with the design of securing 
a sinless community. This were impracticable and 
visionary. Even were there such a thing as perfect 
rectitude among men, it would be impossible for any 
civil code to draw the line between guilt and inno- 
cence by any distinct or definite limitations. Nor 
could justice ever become so active, vigilant or cau- 
tious, as to prevent or punish every instance of wicked- 
ness. If the difficulty of making a code of laws which 
should reach every thing wrong were overcome, there 
would remain the still greater difficulty of enforcing 
such laws when made. Their minuteness would 
render them difficult to be known ; transgressions 
would be constant, and the whole business of society 
would be the discovering, trying and punishing of 
offences. Intention too would be the corpus delicti, 
and this would have to be tried by fallible judges, 
liable to partiality and corruption, and by means of 
witnesses perhaps still more liable. I can imagine no 
state of anarchy or contention equal to that which 
would be produced by civil laws attempting to enforce 
all that is right, and to prohibit all that is wrong. 
The basis of all legislation by general rules admits of 
partial evil for general good ; and this is the only 
practicable legislation. Moses, for example, allowed 
polygamy, because, in that age of the world it was 
not once thought of as a sin ; and the time had not 
come for him to sunder the ten thousand bonds which 
existed all over the nation between husbands and 
wives, parents and children, and suddenly break up 
the foundations of long established society by enforcing 
the original law of marriage. And for the same rea- 



LEGISLATIVE SCIENCE. 59 

son he allowed of divorce for other causes than con- 
jugal infidelity, and also because in a state of society 
where polygamy is allowed, one of the means of gra- 
dually preventing polygamy was not to render divorces 
too difficult. 

It is essential to a moral law, as we have before 
intimated, that it tolerate nothing that is wrong, how- 
ever strong the reasons for the connivance ; while it 
is essential to the wisdom of every code of civil legis- 
lation, that it connive at many things, lest by aiming 
at too much it defeat its own designs. Take a plain 
and familiar example. What course would a wise 
man pursue, if he were to form a civil code for the 
Sandwich Islands, or for the colonies on the coast of 
Africa ? God has already proclaimed to them his 
moral law, requiring perfect holiness. This law the 
faithful missionary of the cross illustrates and enforces 
in all ihe perfection of its precepts, and all the severity 
of its sanctions. But as a virtuous and wise jurist, 
he is called upon to modify and change their civil 
code, by which they shall regulate their mutual inter- 
course, define rights and tresspasses, and crimes ; try 
criminals and determine civil actions. It would be 
puerile to suppose that he would prescribe to them 
the ten commandments, or which would amount to 
the same thing, that he would expressly prohibit by 
penal sanctions every thing which is not accordant to 
the perfect demands of the moral law. He would 
obviously inquire to what extent it is practicable, 
expedient, and conducive to the ends of good govern- 
ment to require all that is right, and forbid all that is 
wrong. While the code which he would establish 
would enjoin nothing that is sinful, under a sound 
discretion he would ask, to what extent it might tole- 
rate and sufi'er some evils, lest it should defeat its own. 



60 LEGISLATIVE SCIENCE. 

design. Nay, would he not even establish laws to regu- 
late those very evils ; to prevent the increase and abuse 
of them, that ultimately and in a more improved and 
advanced state of society, they might be wholly eradi- 
cated ? Now this is what infinite wisdom has done 
in the civil code of the Hebrews. The moral law he 
had given them. But that recently enslaved people 
were about to assume a new character. They were 
about to be organized into a body politic and to be 
constituted the Hebrew state. And in this crisis of 
their history, God himself was their counsellor. He 
condescended to give them statutes and judgments, 
and to become the author and framer of their civil 
and judicial code. And would you deny to him the 
discretion of a wise jurist ? Is it to be supposed that 
he would conduct so weighty a concern with any lack 
of wisdom, or any want of regard for the condition 
and character of the people for whom he was ^bout 
to legislate ? John Locke could write with distin- 
guished ability on the powers of the human mind ; 
but when he comes to discuss the great practical ques- 
tions of civil government, and to prepare a constitution 
for a free state, he is like Sampson shorn of his strength. 
The divine wisdom was never more needed by the 
Hebrew nation than at the commencement of their 
political existence, just after they had escaped the 
servitude of Egypt. Cavillers at the political law of 
the Hebrews, seem to have lost sight of the very 
obvious distinction between their moral and civil code ; 
while a very slight attention to the Scriptures, and to 
the nature of the case evinces that they were delivered 
at different times, to different persons, and for widely 
different purposes. The object of their civil laws is 
to define and illustrate the doctrine of personal rights ; 
to govern their intercourse in the common transactions 



LEGISLATIVE SCIENCE. 61 

of human life ; to extend their influence into the 
domestic circle, and regulate the reciprocal duties of 
husband and wife, parent and child, master and ser- 
vant. And most abundantly do they vindicate their 
divine Author. 

We cannot do justice to this part of our subject 
without entering briefly into some specifications. 
The caution with which the Mosaic law prevented 
the accumulation of debt, the fidelity with which it 
required the restoration of lost property, the restoring 
of property that was injured, or stolen, in the former 
case to the full amount of its original value, and in 
the latter to double that amount, and the distinctness 
and simplicity of the law of bailment, are replete with 
instruction to every succeeding generation of men. 
Any man who carefully reads that beautiful treatise 
of Sir William Jones on this last subject, will see 
that all the leading principles of the law of bailment 
there illustrated, are found in the law of Moses. Exod. 
xxii. 14, 15. In the Mosaic code you find the follow- 
ing law in relation to injuries arising from carelessness 
and inattention. " If a man shall open a pit, or if a 
man shall dig a pit, and not cover it, and an ox, or 
an ass fall therein, the owner of the pit shall make it 
good, and give money unto the owner of them ; and 
the dead beast shall be his. And if one man's ox 
hurt another's that he die ; then they shall sell the 
live ox, and divide the money of it ; and the dead ox 
also they shall divide." This law contains the germ 
of all the existing refinements of the law of injuries 
from want of care, and those arising without fault. 
There is a nice equity in this law, where, upon pay- 
ment for the damages, " the beast shall be his " who 
was the occasion of the injury. The division of the 
loss, too, where neither party is in fault, is a very 



62 LEGISLATIVE SCIENCE. 

refined notion of equity. It is the rule at the present 
day, in the case of the colUsion of ships ; and is both 
more equitable and more tender than leaving the loss 
upon that party who, by accident, first sustains it. 
Dividing the loss also greatly diminished the tempta- 
tion to quarrel about the probable fault, and to 
prevent a litigation; and. this is a cardinal object of 
all wise governments. Exod. xxi. 33 — 35. The 
doctrine of restitution in the cases of theft, of the 
dilFerence in the degree of restitution when the thief 
had sold or killed the stolen ox, or sheep, and when 
it was found in the thief's hand, was most just and 
most politic. As the article could be restored, there 
was no fear of the thief's gaining by a difference of 
value between the sold or killed ox, and those to be 
restored. Exod. xxii. 1 — 4. The law of mandatories, 
or the law concerning property given in charge for 
safe keeping, is not to be surpassed for wisdom and 
equity ; and all the refinements of the law to this day, 
do not carry the principle any further. Exod. xxii. 
7 — 15. No rule of damages in cases of seduction is 
so wise as that in the law of Moses. It is the usual 
one lawyers now present to juries, where the case is 
one of real deception. Exod. xxii. 16, 17. These, and 
other similar laws are expressive of great wisdom, 
and have been uniformly honoured by all wise and 
benevolent legislators. 

It has no doubt occurred to the intelligent reader 
of the Mosaic law, that there is a series of tender and 
sentimental injunctions, the design of which was to 
form the moral sensibilities of the Hebrews by a 
standard at once the most refined and honourable. 
They consist chiefly of precepts directory, to which 
no penalty is annexed, except that which might be 
inflicted by the all-governing hand of God in the 



LEGISLATIVE SCIENCE. G3 

ordinary dispensations of his providence. But they 
were designed to exert a powerful influence ; to be 
great moral axioms ; to guard men against unnatural 
obduracy, and hardness of feeling ; and to be a sort 
of standing appeal to the tenderness and honour of 
men in all their mutual intercourse. I allude to such 
examples as the following. " Thou shalt not vex a 
stranger, nor oppress him ; for ye were strangers in 
the land of Egypt. Ye shall not afflict any widow, 
nor fatherless child. If thou afflict them in any wise, 
and they cry at all unto me, I will surely hear their 
cry ; and my wrath shall wax hot, and I will kill 
you with the sword ; and your wives shall be widows, 
and your children fatherless." God bound them to 
act in this manner from an affectionate regard to his 
authority ; and gave them distinctly to understand, 
that if they refused to do so, he himself would become 
the guardian of the poor, the father of the fatherless, 
the protector of the helpless orphan, the widow's 
God, and the avenger of her wrongs. A law like 
this is an everlasting testimony against the man who 
neglects the sufferings of his brethren ; and though 
he may have all the religious ardour and zeal of a 
martyr, it denounces him as a base dissembler. Of 
the same general character is the injunction, to leave 
the "forgotten sheaf" in the field in the time of har- 
vest; not "to go over the boughs of the olive tree a 
second time ;" nor " twice glean the grapes of their 
vine^^ard;" but that what remained after the first 
gathering, should be left for " the stranger, the father- 
less, and the widow." The same remarks are also 
pertinent to the rule as to " pledges," forbidding them 
to " take the upper or nether millstone to pledge," 
because this was the life, and only remaining means 
of sustenance to the poor. There is a remarkable 

6 



64 LEGISLATIVE SCIENCE. 

delicacy too, a singular refinement of feeling in the 
law relative to pledges. " When thou dost lend thy 
brother any thing, thou shalt not go into his house to 
fetch his pledge.^^ You may not enter there to dis- 
cover the nakedness of the land. Your eye shall not 
penetrate the miseries of his humble dwelling. Your 
presence shall not bring the blush of shame upon the 
face of his mortified family. You shall not have the 
opportunity of publishing to the world their abjectness 
and low estate. " Thou shalt stand abroad, and the 
man to whom thou dost lend, shall bring out the 
pledge abroad unto thee.'^ Of the same general 
character is the law that required a man, if he " met 
his enemy's ox, or ass going astray, to bring it back 
to him again;" the law that the "wages of every 
hired labourer should be paid punctually before the 
going down of the sun ;" the injunction against 
slander and tale-bearing ; the law against usury ; and 
the law which even guards against hardening the 
feelings by destroying the bird with her eggs. Now, 
all this was above any mere philosopher, sage, or 
hero. These precepts are very touching; they are 
the finest political morality ; and not only very high 
morality, but very deep sentiment. A leader of a 
horde of fugitive slaves, who had employed his time 
in tending sheep upon the mountains of Arabia 
Petrea, and associating with oppressed makers of 
bricks, could hardly, of his own undirected wisdom, 
have been so sentimental in his equity. A collection 
of the rules of this general character would be one of 
the most striking collections of kind, considerate, and 
merciful legislation ever known ; and can scarcely be 
believed of a lawgiver so sternly denouncing blood 
for every crime which struck at the social organiza- 
tion. The combination of the two things proves him, 



LEGISLATIVE SCIENCE. 65 

not to have been a cruel, and to have been a wise 
legislator. 

The trial of jealousy also is a singular institution 
among the Hebrews, if actually practised. But there 
is in it such an appeal to the secret terror of a guilty 
conscience, as to have prevented any but the innocent 
from submitting to its apparently harmless potions. 
How different was this trial to an innocent person 
from the trials of ordeal in the dark ages. What 
innocent wife could walk over burning plough-shares ; 
steep her hands or feet in burning oil ; or float, when 
fettered, in the horse-pond ? The poor Jewess had 
an ordeal which could not hurt the innocent ; while 
the middle ages had ordeals which left the innocent 
no chance of escape. 

So likewise the reference of matters of so much 
nicety as not to be capable of solution by judges, to 
the priesthood as a body, and punishing with death a 
presumptuous contempt of the sentence, was well cal- 
culated to protect the ordinary magistrate from the 
animosity of a losing party, where the question of 
right was very difficult, and where the losing party 
would never be satisfied with a mere reason. In 
modern constitutions it is now necessary to leave the 
ultimate decision of difficult matters to large bodies, 
who cannot, from their very multitude, be objects of 
personal animosity. 

After their civil, or political laws, is their code of 
Penal Statutes. Law punishes as well as protects ; 
and punishes only to strengthen its protection. In a 
well governed state, crime is prevented more frequently 
than punished. To make punishment unnecessary is 
the great employment of legislative wisdom. There 
are, I know, some peculiarities in the penal code of the 
Hebrews which have been the subject of loud com- 



66 I^EGISLATIVE SCIENCE. 

plaint. Not a few of these peculiarities are to be ac- 
counted for by the fact that they were designed to 
keep that people distinct from the rest of mankind, and 
thus prevent their being involved in the idolatry of 
the pagan world. Infidels have made themselves 
merry also at the minuteness of this code. And it 
may be, that there are some honest, but fastidious 
readers of the Old Testament whose delicacy has been 
wounded by those very recitals, which have con- 
tributed to the formation of that high standard of sus- 
ceptibility which shrinks from the conception of laws 
so necessary to this degraded people. When we con- 
sider that the Mosaic code was prescribed for a people 
ignorant of all law ; a people who had just emerged 
from the most abject slavery ; a people scarcely beyond 
the limits of the most loathsome and defiling pagan- 
ism ; we shall cease to wonder at the minuteness of 
its details, and shall admire the divine wisdom and 
condescension in stooping thus to their low condition. 
There are several striking points of difference 
between the Mosaic penal code and that of most 
modern states. One of these is the requiring of two 
witnesses for every mortal crime, and that the witnesses 
should aid in the execution of the guilty. This is a 
very remarkable provision among such a people as 
the Hebrews ; wonderfully calculated to prevent false 
testimony, and deserves imitation among the most en- 
lightened judges and legislators. Another is, that they 
had no law of imprisonment, either for debt, or for 
crime. There are but two recorded exceptions to this 
remark within my knowledge. The one is the keep- 
ing of a criminal in custody for a single night, until 
the will of the Deity could be consulted concerning 
him, and the other is the appointment of the cities of 
refuge for the manslayer. Though of ancient usage 



LEGISLATIVE SCIENCE. 67 

and origin, imprisonment did not originate with the 
law of Moses. Instead of imprisoning for crime, the 
Mosaic code requires the immediate and prompt exe- 
cution of the law. It was their doctrine that laws 
were made to be executed ; and the divine Lawgiver 
saw fit to decide that there should be no needless 
delay in the execution. Another striking difference 
related to the character of the crimes that were punish- 
able with death. They were all either of high moral 
malignity, or crimes that tended to the subversion of 
their whole civil polity, and endangered the social 
existence of the nation. The propriety of the law 
against them rests upon the same grounds as the 
punishment of treason and murder, and is fully justi- 
fied. In ordinary cases, constituted as that nation 
was, under a Theocracy, they struck at the root of so- 
cial existence ; and the severity of the punishment 
against them was in self-defence for the very exist- 
ence of society. Besides, with a people of extreme 
simplicity as to property, almost the only punishment 
must be personal ; and as they were emerging from a 
slavery where the taking of Ufe was probably very 
common, capricious, and despotic, without severe 
punishments they were without any. One thing also, 
is quite remarkable in a code where the ignorance of 
the people and the simplicity of property and social 
state left the lawgiver few punishments of which to 
choose, and threw him upon stripes or death. I mean 
the tenderness of blood, and the almost superstitious 
reverence for human life. The ox that killed a man, 
or woman, was stoned, nor should his flesh be eaten; 
and if he were an unruly ox, and this were known to 
his owner, not only was the ox stoned, but his owner 
was put to death. This is the origin of all those for- 
feitures in law which arise from the misfortune rather 

6* 



68 LEGISLATIVE SCIENCE. 

than the crime of the owner, and are called deodand* 
It is not long since this principle was carried into exten- 
sive operation in the laws of England. Whatever 
personal chattel was the immediate occasion of the 
death of any reasonable creature, was forfeited to the 
king and applied to benevolent purposes. Bracton 
states the law to have been, that " all things which, 
while in motion, caused death, are to be offered to 
God." But the English law was even more exten- 
sive than this. If a man were killed by a fall from a 
cart, or a horse, the cart or horse was forfeited. A 
well in which a person was drowned, was ordered to 
be filled up under the inspection of the coroner. And 
among the Athenians, " whatever was the i^ause of 
man's death by falling upon him, was exterminated, 
or cast out of the dominions of the republic.'' There 
seems to us to be superstition in such a law, but it is 
a humane superstition. The mind was taught by it 
to contemplate with horror the privation of human 
life ; and it might not be familiar even with an insen- 
sible object which had been the occasion of death, lest 
that sentiment should be diminished. The most cor- 
rupt and melancholy state of human society is that in 
which the mind becomes familiarized to blood ; and it 
is a question of grave import, whether any thing is 
gained by abrogating even the sacred, and, if you 
please, superstitious, regard to human life which was 
inspired by this great principle of the Mosaic code. 

When you take up the special examples of penal 
law under this code, you cannot but admire their wis- 
dom. You have in the first place idolatry, and the 
penalty was death. It was treason against the state 
to acknowledge any other as king, than God. This 
crime also was always connected with the inhuman 
* Blackstone's Commentaries, vol. I, chapter 8th. 



LEGISLATIVE SCIENCE. 69 

and bloody practice of offering human sacrifices. It 
was of most aggravated enormity and struck at the 
very existence of the nation. The next crime is blas- 
phemy, which was punished with death for the same 
sufficient reason. The next is deliberate and wilful 
murder. " He that smiteth a man so that he die, shall 
surely be put to death." This was a republication 
of the law given to Noah, and in my humble judg- 
ment is obligatory upon the world in all subsequent 
ages. The nice distinctions laid down in the Mosaic 
code between murder and manslaughter, are to the 
present day the just and recognized principles of the 
law of homicide, and are carried out into every rami- 
fication without any new principle. Another mortal 
crime is smiting a parent. This is a very unnatural, 
uncommon, and improbable crime. Like several 
others, it struck at the basis of society, framed as it 
was on a patriarchal model and organization, which 
could not continue long on the land given to it, unless 
the simple principles of its organization were severely 
defended. So of cursing a parent, which was also 
punished with the same severity ; and so of inveterate 
disobedience to parents for the same reason. So also 
of incest, sodomy, bestiality, forcible violation, and 
adultery, and all for the same reason. So also of 
false pretensions to prophecy for the same reasons 
with idolatry and blasphemy. So also of witchcraft. 
Whether witchcraft be imaginary or not, no cruelty 
is known equal to that committed by pretenders to 
this mystery. Witness the medicine-men of our own 
western Indians. In an ignorant body of slaves, with- 
out intelligence and subject to superstitions, preten- 
sions to witchcraft were likely to be most disastrous to 
the happiness of the people, and very dangerous to 
the government : and I would at this day, legislating 



70 LEGISLATIVE SCIENCE. 

for our Indians, or for negroes subject to Obi supersti- 
tion, punish conjuring with death, quite as readily as 
any crime short of actual murder, or treason. The 
only other crimes punishable with death by the Mo- 
saic code, were man-stealing, Sabbath-breakmg, and 
contumacious resistance against the supreme authority 
of the State. The time was, and that less than two 
hundred years ago, when by the laws of England, 
one hundred and forty-eight crimes were punishable 
with death. By the Mosaic code there were seven- 
teen. Let the profane cease from their rebukes of 
the penal statutes of Moses ! 

There is one fact in relation to the Mosaic code 
which is a severe rebuke to modern governments. 
No injury simply affecting property, no invasion of 
personal rights whatever, could draw down upon an 
Israelite an ignominious death. Mammon was not 
the god of the Mosaic law. That code respected 
moral depravity more than gold. Moral turpitude 
and the most atrocious expressions of moral turpitude, 
these were the objects of its unsleeping severity. 

" Mammon leads ixs on, 
Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell 
From heaven ; for e'en in heaven his looks and thoughts 
Were always downward bent, admiring more 
The riches of heaven's pavement, trodden gold, 
Than aught divine or holy." — 

Nor is it a slight commendation of that code, that 
its laws were equal. Ye " shall have one manner of 
law as well for the stranger, as for one of your own 
country.'' Every man in the community had the 
same protection from the penal laws. 

Not a little has been said against the law of retali- 
ation, or the lex talionis, as it is enjoined in this code. 



LEGISLATIVE SCIENCE. 71 

But has it not been hastily said ? No man doubts 
that, as the law of individual and private revenge, it 
is wrong. It is in this view, and only in this view, 
that it is condemned by the Saviour, and superseded 
by the injunction, " Resist not evil." No man may 
take the law into his own hands, and become at plea- 
sure the avenger of his own wrongs. But where is 
its severity, or inequitableness, as the adjudicated 
decision of a legal tribunal? The lex talionis in rela- 
tion to deliberate and premeditated crimes is just, and 
it is not certainly impolitic. " Thou shalt give life for 
hfe." Nor do I see any injustice or inexpediency in 
punishing deliberate maiming by a similar judicial 
maiming. No man can say it is not the measure of 
punishment most consonant to natural equity. As 
applied to perjury, a crime always of great and studied 
premeditation, there is a strong propriety in its being 
rigidly executed, and in doing to the perjurer " as he 
had thought to have done unto his brother." 

Nor let the conscientious reader of the Mosaic law 
be induced to imagine that there is any thing either 
in the civil or penal code of the Hebrews that requires 
and justifies sin. It is not so. Great injustice has 
been done in this particular to the Old Testament, as 
I have remarked before. There is a difference be- 
tween a moral and a judicial code, even though pro- 
ceeding from the same source ; and though what the 
former may not allow, the latter may not require, yet 
what the former may forbid, the latter may leave 
unnoticed, and even regulate and control. It is not 
necessary that a code of civil lav/s should adjudicate 
upon every moral evil. It is not best that it should. 
Notwithstanding all that has been said and written, 
there is no evidence to my mind that there is any 
thing in the laws of Moses which countervails the 



72 LEGISLATIVE SCIENCE. 

unchanging principles of moral rectitude. Sometimes 
you find the Saviour, when commenting on that 
code, giving the preference to a moral precept over a 
positive institution, but this is no evidence that the 
positive institution was sinful. Moses " suffered some 
things for the hardness of the hearts of the people,'^ 
which in a subsequent age and a different state of 
society, he would not have suffered ; but this is no 
evidence that what he judicially suffered he morally 
approved. Not an instance can be found in which the 
divine command required that, which can upon any 
fair construction, be regarded as a violation of that 
rule of right, which is founded in the nature and rela- 
tion of things, and is written in every human heart. 
The Jews in the time of Christ had erroneous views 
of the laws of Moses, and perverted them, and needed 
the exposition which was given them by the Saviour. 
And not a few at the present day have erroneous 
views of the instructions of Christ, and pervert them, 
and need to be taught that they are perfectly consis- 
tent with the instructions of Moses. The gospel is in 
advance of the law, but not in opposition to the law. 
Moses wrote of Christ, and if we believe the words 
of Christ, we shall believe the writings of Mose3. 

The Jews were a favoured people. Their penal 
laws are so much distinguished for discretion, human- 
ity, equity, and mildness, that they cannot but chal- 
lenge the admiration of every intelligent jurist. Let 
them be compared with Hales' Pleas of the Crown, 
and it is no difficult matter to see on which side the 
advantage lies. Nothing escapes their notice. They 
guard the morals as well as the persons of the com- 
munity. It were well if every crowded city had as 
good a system of sanitary regulations as the camp of 
Israel. The uniform tendency of their whole system 



LEGISLATIVE SCIENCE. 73 

of jurisprudence was to promote a good understand- 
ing between man and man ; and the great object of 
their police, the prevention, rather than the punish- 
ment of crime. Moses is not less truly the great law- 
giver, than the first historian. The surrounding and 
contemporaneous nations were far in the rear of this 
favoured people in every department of legislative 
knowledge. Chaldea, Egypt, Phosnicia, Media, Persia, 
then under the sovereignty of Chedorlaomer, had 
every thing to learn on this subject from the Hebrews. 
" What nation,'^ says the God of Israel to his chosen 
people, " what nation is there so great, that hath sta- 
tutes and judgments so righteous, as all this law which 
I set before you this day ?'^ 

Men do not always follow ancient customs because 
they are wise. And yet is there no doubt that many 
succeeding ages, as well as those that were contem- 
poraneous, were deeply indebted to the Mosaic insti- 
tutions. Dr. Graves, in his admirable lectures on the 
Pentateuch, says, that " the Mosaic code must have 
been generally Imown in those eastern countries from 
which the most ancient and celebrated legislators and 
sages derived the model of their laws.'' Moses indeed 
labours to impress this thought upon his countrymen 
as a powerful motive for a careful observance of their 
institutions. " Keep therefore and do them, for this 
is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight 
of the nations which shall hear of all these statutes, 
and say. Surely this great nation is a wise and under- 
standing people." The lawgivers of nations border- 
ing on the Jews borrowed many of their institutions 
from the laws of Moses. This was obviously true of 
the Egyptians and the Phoenicians. During the reign 
of Artaxerxes Longimanus, while the Jews were scat- 
tered throughout the kingdom of Persia, their laws 



74 LEGISLATIVE SCIENCE. 

were the subjects of remark and notoriety ; for Haman 
speaks of them to the king as " diverse from the laws 
of all people." That the extent to which the laws of 
Greece were indebted to the institutions of Moses was 
not inconsiderable, may be inferred from the influence 
of the Hebrew State on the political condition of the 
world, during the early ages of the Grecian history, 
as well as from the direct testimony of learned men. 
Very many points of resemblance between the Grecian 
laws and customs, and those of the Hebrews are 
stated by Archbishop Potter, in his Antiquities. The 
Athenians had a prescribed bill of divorce, and so had 
the Jews. Among the Jews, the father gave names 
to the children ; and such was the custom among the 
Greeks. The purgation oath among the Greeks 
strongly resembles the oath of jealousy among the 
Hebrews. The harvest and vintage festival among 
the Greeks ; the presentation of the best of their flocks, 
and the ofljering of their first fruits to the gods, toge- 
ther with the portion prescribed for the priests, the 
interdiction against garments of diverse colours, pro- 
tection from violence to the man who fled to their 
altars, would seem to indicate that the Greeks had 
cautiously copied the usages of the Jews. And whence 
was it that no person was permitted to approach the 
altar of Diana, who had touched a dead body, or been 
exposed to other causes of impurity, and that the laws 
of Athens admitted no man to the priesthood who had 
any blemish upon his person, unless from the institu- 
tions of Moses? And has not the agrarian law of 
Lycurgus its prototype, though none of its defects, in 
the agrarian law of the Hebrews ? Many of the 
Athenian laws in relation to the descent of property, 
and the prohibited degrees of relationship in marriage, 
seem to have been transcribed by Solon from the laws 



I 



LEGISLATIVE SCIENCE. 75 

of Moses. Sir Matthew Hale, in his History of the 
Common Law of England, aiRrms, " that among the 
Grecians, the laws of descent resemble those of the 
Jews." 

It will be universally conceded that the Roman, or 
Civil Law, as collected and digested by the order of 
Justinian, has exerted a powerful influence even on 
the institutions of modern times. Nor is it to be 
supposed that this intelligent people, who had long 
suffered under the evils of unwritten laws, when they 
turned their attention to the formation of a more cer- 
tain and permanent code, would not consult the 
existing laws of the wisest nations. Both ancient 
and modern writers of Roman history, therefore 
affirm, that the individuals commissioned by the senate 
and tribunes to form the Twelve Tables, were directed 
to examine the laws of Athens and the Grecian cities. 
So that the Roman law must have been not a little 
indebted to the Mosaic. 

Sir Matthew Hale remarks, " that among the many 
preferences which the laws of England have above 
others, the two principal ones are, the hereditary 
transmission of property, and the trial by jnry." And 
who does not see that these originated with the Jews ? 
By the law of Moses, the succession, in the descending 
line, was all to the sons, except that the oldest son 
had a double portion. If the son died in his father's 
lifetime, the grandson succeeded to the portion of his 
father. Daughters had no inheritance so long as 
there were sons, or descendants of sons. Where the 
father left only daughters and no sons, the daughters 
succeeded equally. And was there nothing in the 
administration of penal justice among the Hebrews, 
that suggested at least the trial by jury ? I mean the 
publicity of their trials in the gates of the city, where 

7 



76 LEGISLATIVE SCIENCE. 

their judges, though elders and Levites, were taken 
from the general mass of the citizens. Sir Matthew 
Hale, in the work to which reference has already- 
been made, has another remark in relation to the 
influence which the Bible generally has exerted upon 
the laws of England. In speaking of the difficulties 
of ascertaining the origin of the common law, among 
the rest he enumerates the " growth of Christianity 
in the kingdom, introducing some new laws, or abro- 
gating some old ones, that seemed less consistent with 
Christian doctrines." A portion of the common law 
as it now stands was first collected by Alfred the 
Great ; and it is asserted by Sismondi, in his History 
of the Fall of the Roman Empire, that when this 
prince "caused a republication of the Saxon laws, he 
inserted several laws taken from the Judaical ritual 
into his statutes, as if to give new strength and 
cogency to the principles of morality.'^ And hence 
it is no uncommon thing in the early English reporters 
to find frequent references to the Mosaic law. Sis- 
mondi also states that one of the first acts of the 
clergy under Pepin and Charlemagne of France, was 
to introduce into the legislation of the Franks several 
of the Mosaic laws found in the books of Deuteronomy 
and Leviticus. 

I need , not say, that the entire code of civil and 
judicial statutes throughout New England, as well as 
throughout those states first settled by the descendants 
of New England, shows nothing more distinctly than 
that its framers were familiar with the Bible, and 
substantially adopted " the judicial laws of God, as 
they were delivered by Moses, as binding and a rule 
to all their courts." And why should not this sacred 
book, so full of the counsels of wisdom, and itself a 
law to man, exert a paramount influence on all 



LEGISLATIVE SCIENCE. 77 

human laws, wherever it is known and revered? 
** Tlie Scripture/' says the judicious Hooker, "is 
fraught even with the laws of nature, insomuch that 
Gratian, defining natural right, termeth it that which 
the books of the law and the gospel do contain. 
Neither is it vain that the Scripture aboundeth with 
so great store of laws of this kind ; for they are such 
as we of ourselves could not easily have found out ; 
and then the benefit is not small to have them readily 
set down to our hands ; or if they be so clear and 
manifest, that no man endued with reason can lightly 
be ignorant of them, yet the Spirit, as it were, bor- 
rowing them from the school of nature, and applying 
them, is not without most singular use and profit for 
men's instruction.'' 

It was from God himself that one nation, and one 
only immediately received their laws. And they are 
worthy to be regarded as the model for all succeeding 
ages. There is no comparison between the laws of 
this people and the laws of other ancient nations, 
except as the latter were borrowed from the institu- 
tions of Moses. The learned Michaelis, who was 
professor of law in the university of Gottingen, re- 
marks, "that a man who considers laws philosophically, 
who would survey them with the eye of a Mon- 
tesquieu, would never overlook the laws of Moses." 
Goguet, in his elaborate and learned treatise on the 
Origin of Laws, observes, that " the more we meditate 
on the laws of Moses, the more we shall perceive 
their wisdom and inspiration. They alone have the 
inestimable advantage never to have undergone any 
of the revolutions common to all human laws, which 
have always demanded frequent amendments ; some- 
times changes ; sometimes additions ; sometimes the 
retrenching of superfluities. There has been nothing 



78 LEGISLATIVE SCIENCE. 

changed, nothing added, nothing retrenched from the 
laws of Moses for ahove three thousand years." 
Milman, in his History of the Jews, remarks, that 
" the Hebrew lawgiver has exercised a more exten- 
sive and permanent influence over the destinies of 
mankind, than any other individual in the annals of 
the world." It Avas the opinion of that distinguished 
statesman and jurist, the late Fisher Ames, clarum 
et veneymhih nomen, that " no man could be a 
sound lawyer who was not well read in the laws of 
Moses." 

This venerable code claims our reverence, if it 
were for nothing but its high antiquity. But it 
has higher claims. Taken as a whole, it contains 
more sublime truths, and maxims more essentially 
connected with the well-being of our race, than 
all the profane writers of antiquity could furnish. 
They were perfect at their formation ; uniting all 
that is authoritative in obligation, with all that is 
benevolent in their tendency, and not less conducive 
to the glory of the Lawgiver, than to the happiness 
of his subjects. That bold personification of law 
in the abstract made by Hooker, may with strong 
propriety be applied to the system of legislation 
revealed in the Bible. " Of law there can be no 
less acknowledged, than that her seat is the bosom 
of God, lier voice the harmony of the world. All 
things in heaven and earth do her homage ; the 
very least as feeling her care, and the greatest as 
not exempt from her power. Both angels and men, 
and creatures of what condition soever, though each 
in a different sort and name, yet all with one uniform 
consent, admire her as the mother of their peace and 
joy." 

A portion of this law was designed to be authori- 



LEGISLATIVE SCIENCE. 79 

tatively binding on the Jews alone ; another portion 
of it is equally binding on us ; and though heaven 
and earth pass away, it shall never pass away. — 
" Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy 
heart, and thy neighbour as thyself." The nature and 
extent of this law, and our everlasting responsibilities 
to it as the creatures of God, as intelligent and 
responsible agents, it becomes us gravely to inves- 
tigate, both as it relates to our destiny in this 
world and that which is to come. We are not, like 
the vegetative and animal creation, passive subjects, 
submitting to the imperative law of our nature, but 
active, accountable existences, voluntarily obeying or 
refusing to obey. All the features of this law, we 
know, are "holy, just, and good." Its very penalty 
is but the sterner accent of love, warning us of our 
danger. Its penalty and precept are both written 
upon the conscience ; and wo be to the transgressor, 
who, because it is no longer the rule of his justification 
before God, disregards it as the rule of his duty. 



LECTURE IV. 

THE BIBLE FRIENDLY TO CIVIL LIBERTY. 

Every considerate friend of civil liberty, in order to 
be consistent with himself, must be the friend of the 
Bible. I have yet to learn, that tyrants have ever 
eftectually conquered and subjugated a people whose 
liberties and public virtue were founded upon the 
word of God. The American people, I am confident, 
owe much in this respect to the influence of this great 
charter of human freedom. I need scarcely solicit the 
favourable regard of my audience, therefore, when I 
say to them, that the topic of the present lecture is 
the influence which the Holy Scriptures have exerted 
and are adapted to exert upon civil liberty. 

Civil liberty is not freedom from restraint. Men 
may be wisely and benevolently checked and con- 
troled, and yet be free. No man has a right to act as 
he thinks fit, irrespective of the wishes and interests 
of others. This were exemption from the restraints 
of all law, and from all the wholesome influence of 
social institutions. Heaven itself were not free, if 
this were freedom. No created being holds any such 
liberty as this, by a divine warrant. The spirit of 
subordination, so far from being inconsistent with 
liberty, is inseparable from it. It is essential to liberty 
80 



CIVIL LIBERTY. 81 

that men should be subjected to the restraints of law; 
and where this restraint is limited by a wise regard 
to the best interests of the State, there men are free. 
Every restraint of natural liberty that is arbitrary and 
needless; that is imposed on one class of society, 
merely for the sake of aggrandizing, and augmenting 
the influence of another ; every restraint that is not 
called for, for the purpose of securing to men of every 
rank and condition their just rights, and of diffusing the 
spirit of industry, virtue and peace, is in its own nature 
tyranny and oppression. The highest degree of civil 
liberty is enjoyed where natural liberty is so far only 
abridged and restrained, as is necessary and expedient 
for the safety and interest of the society or state. A 
community may be free, for example, without extend- 
ing to persons of all ages and both sexes the right of 
suffrage ; without making all eligible to office ; with- 
out abolishing the distinction of rank ; without anni- 
hilating the correlative and reciprocal rights and 
duties of master and servant ; without destroying 
filial subordination and parental claims ; without 
abolishing the punishment of crime ; without abjuring 
the restraints of sanitary and maritime law ; and with- 
out giving up the right of those compulsory services 
of its subjects which the common weal demands. The 
civil liberty of men " depends not so much on the 
removal of all restraint from them, as on the due re- 
straint of the natural liberty of others.^' There are a 
few leading principles on which all free govern- 
ments must forever rest. They are such as the fol- 
lowing : That government is instituted for the good 
of the people ; that it is the right and duty of the peo- 
ple to become acquainted with their public interests ; 
that all laws constitutionally enacted, should be faith- 
fully and conscientiously obeyed ; that the people, by 



82 CIVIL LIBERTY. 

their representatives, should have a voice in the enact- 
mentof these laws; that mild and moderate laws should 
be invested with energy ; that the life, liberty, and 
property of no man should be infringed upon, except 
by process of law ; that every man who respects and 
obeys the laws has a right to protection and support ; 
and that all that is valuable in civil institutions rests 
on the intelligence and virtue of the people. Such, 
as far as I am acquainted with them, are the great 
principles of civil liberty and a free government, let 
the form of that government be what it may. It may 
be monarchical or republican ; its constitution may be 
written or unwritten ; but wherever the duties of 
magistrates and subjects are prescribed and defined, 
and their rights protected by the preceding principles, 
a people may be said to be free. 

There never has been any such thing as true free- 
dom among those who were ignorant of the word of 
God. The great mass of men from the more early 
ages of the world to the present time, have been 
controlled by mere arbitrary power. They have 
known very little of exemption from the arbitrary will 
of others. In many countries, this exemption has 
indeed been secured by established laws, and has had 
the semblance of salutary restraint ; while the laws 
themselves have been lawless and arbitrary ; at one 
time extravagantly severe, and at another extrava- 
gantly indulgent, and the mere expression of indivi- 
dual fickleness and authority. 

There are few profane historians, with the excep- 
tion of Herodotus and Thucydides, who give any 
account of the world earlier than Alexander, that can 
be relied upon. From that time downwards, the 
history of nations becomes more clear, just, and 
authentic ; but from that time upwards, the Bible is 



CIVIL LIBERTY. 83 

the only source of authentic information. There was 
a general dispersion of mankind into various parts of 
the world, as early as the days of Peleg, and probably 
just before the death of Noah, and under his direction. 
Eusebius and Winder give some very plausible rea- 
sons, to say the least, for this opinion. The dispersion 
was completed at the tower of Babel, when the pos- 
terity of Ham, who, under the direction of Nimrod 
had wrested the plains of Babylon from the descend- 
ants of Shem, were scattered abroad upon the face of 
the whole earth. The beginning of Nimrod 's king- 
dom was Babel. And the Bible informs us what a 
despot he was ; everywhere instigating war and blood- 
shed, laying the nations under tribute, and transmit- 
ting his despotic and warlike power from generation 
to generation, till the Egyptians drove his descendants 
into Canaan, and Joshua drove them into Greece. 
Ninus inherited the tyranny of his father ; and the 
whole history of the Assyrian empire from the days 
of Ninus to its overthrow by the Babylonians and the 
Medes, is a history of the most absolute despotism. 
Such also was the character of the Babylonian empire 
from the revolt of Nebopolassar to its destruction by 
Cyrus. Egypt and Persia also were equally strangers 
to civil liberty. And with some partial restrictions, 
by which the authority of the former was controlled 
by established customs, and that of the latter by the 
senate, such was the character of imperial Greece and 
Rome. The republics of Greece and Rome were 
comparatively free ; though their freedom was far 
from being founded upon a correct understanding of 
the rights of man. I do not know that there is in 
antiquity a single example of a free state, in which 
the people have exerted any due influence upon the 
government until you come to the Jewish republic. 



S4 CIVIL LIBERTY. 

When I cast my eyes over the earth at the present 
day, I cannot fix them on a single Pagan, Mahomme- 
dan, or Antichristian country, where the genius of 
liberty has a dwelling place. She may at times have 
hovered over them, like the dove over the waste of 
waters, but like her, has found no rest for the sole of 
her foot. 

The Bible is the great protector and guardian of 
the liberties of men. It is the true basis, and the only 
basis of the temple of freedom. It is the necessary 
result of an acquaintance with the word of God that a 
people should be restive under a tyrant's yoke, and 
sooner or later break from their chains. It is a maxim 
in the Romish Church, that "ignorance is the mother 
of devotion;" but the true origin of this aphorism is, 
that ignorance rivets the chains of civil as well as 
ecclesiastical power. It were impossible for a people 
to be ignorant of their own rights, or the responsi- 
bilities of their rulers, who are deeply and honestly 
imbued with the principles of the Bible. Where the 
Bible forms public opinion, a nation must be free. 
Who does not see that such a tyrant as Nero, or Cali- 
gula ; or such a wretch as Henry VIII. of England, or 
Charles IX. of France, or popes Julius II. or Alexander 
IV. would not be tolerated in Protestant Christendom 
for an hour ? The reason is, men read and understand 
the Bible. Moral and religious knowledge is every- 
where circulated, and men can no more submit to 
chains in a Christian land, than they can be suffocated 
while they live and breathe a vital atmosphere. 

Considering the age of the world in which the 
Jewish code was established, and how little the doc- 
trine of personal rights was understood in the world 
generally, is it not somewhat remarkable that the laws 
of Moses were so decidedly the friend of civil liberty.^ 



CIVIL LIBERTY. S5 

I have taken some pains to examine some of the most 
instructive writers, for the purpose of ascertaining 
whether the beau-ideal of a free government were 
not reahzed in the Hebrew state. And I confess I 
have been not a Uttle deUghted. and surprised. I know 
not where to look for any single work which is so full 
of the great principles of pohtical wisdom as the laws 
of Moses and the history of the Kings of Judah and 
Israel. There are not to my knowledge any where to 
be found such abundant and effective illustrations of 
these great principles, as are found in the laws and 
history of this people. Notwithstanding their recent 
servitude to a foreign and despotic prince, and though 
just entering upon a tedious pilgrimage in the deserts 
of Arabia, they adopted a regular form of government. 
It was a government which lasted almost half a cen- 
tury before they came to their promised land ; and 
which, when they were ultimately settled in that land, 
remained for a series of years undisturbed, and enabled 
them to maintain their independence throughout all 
the varieties of their national history. And yet, with 
the exception of the writ of habeas corpus, a privilege 
not required under their government, because it did 
not allow of imprisonment, I do not know that there 
is a single feature of a free state, but is here distinctly 
developed. They were a people remarkably well ac- 
quainted with their rights and form of government. 
One reason, no doubt, why God left them wandering 
forty years in the desert of Arabia, was that the various 
parts of their political machinery might be arranged 
and adjusted, and well understood among themselves, 
before they took possession of the promised land. 
And it was thus arranged and understood, and proved 
itself not less adapted to their prosperity, than their 
adversity ; to their fmal settlement in Palestine, thari 



86 CIVIL LIBERTY. 

to their pilgrimage in the wilderness. Though rich in 
resources, and powerful in arms, they were free. 
Though holding, as they did in the time of David and 
Solomon, the balance of power between the two great 
monarchies of Egypt and Assyria, and giving law to 
all the petty kingdoms between the Euphrates and 
the Mediterranean, they remained a free people. They 
were free in choosing their own form of government ; 
free in the enactment of their laws ; free in that "the 
laws governed and not men." The superior excel- 
lence of the Mosaic institutions, when compared with 
the institutions of the most celebrated pagan nations, 
is strikingly displayed in their attachment to the cause 
of freedom. They were founded on a sound know- 
ledge of human nature, and such as the art and science 
of government rest upon every where. There was 
every security for the preservation of social order 
which could be imparted on the one hand by a vene- 
ration for power, and on the other by a high sense of 
personal independence and individual right. 

The form of government established by Moses was 
republican ; though, with salutary restrictions, the 
people were at liberty to change it when they desired. 
It consisted of twelve great tribes ; each under its own 
leader constituting a little commonwealth, while all 
were united in one great republic. They were a 
nation of confederated states, bound together for the 
purposes of defence and conquest. Their government 
was more nearly assimilated to that of the Cantons of 
Switzerland, and the Confederated States of our own 
Union, than any other government. It bore some re- 
semblance to that of the ancient Gauls or Celtas ; and 
still more to that of the ancient Britons, except that 
the Gauls and Britons had no federative bond. During 
the commonwealth, they chose and accepted God as 



CIVIL LIBERTY. 87 

their King, and he chose and declared them his pecu- 
liar people. When their form of government was 
changed, it was at their own request and solicitation. 
From a republic, it became an elective, limited mon- 
archy ; under which their kings, whether appointed 
by God, or hereditary, did not enter upon the func- 
tions of their office until they were accepted and crown- 
ed by the people, and by a sworn capitulation were 
restricted in their prerogative. Their laws, though 
originating for the most part with God, were approved 
by themselves. The nation, in other words, adopted 
their own laws. Nor is there an instance on record, 
to the best of my knowledge, in which their laws were 
not proposed to the representatives of the people, and 
received their unanimous consent. On the one hand, 
there were some strong democratic tendencies in their 
government, and in the other some strong tendencies 
to despotism ; but both under so many checks and 
balances, that never was a nation better acquainted 
with their public interests, and rarely have the rights 
and duties of rulers and subjects been more definitely 
prescribed, or life, liberty and property more secure. 

The liberties of a people depend much on the pro- 
per distribution of landed property. The Hebrew 
government was founded on an equal agrarian law. 
Unlike the agrarian law of Lycurgus, which debased 
the Spartans to a state of semi-barbarism, and ulti- 
mately committed the culture of their lands to their 
slaves ; and equally unlike the feudal system of the 
middle ages, which has given shape and colouring to all 
the political and civil institutions of modern Europe ; it 
made provision for the support of 600,000 yeomanry, 
with from six to twenty -five acres of land each, which 
they held independent of all temporal superiors, and 
which they might not alienate, but on the condition 

8 



88 CIVIL LIBERTY. 

of their reverting to the famihes which originally pos- 
sessed them, every fiftieth year.* Such were the im- 
munities of the mass of the Hebrew population ; not 
of its lords, nor its vassals, but its medium population. 
There were the poor beneath them, and men of supe- 
rior rank and property above them, the piinces of 
their tribes and the heads of their thousands. But 
there was no degraded peasantry and no hereditary 
noblesse. And notwithstanding all that has been said 
of the pre-eminence of one poor, dependent tribe, a 
tribe that were disquahfied from becoming the proprie- 
tors of a single foot of landed propert)^, never was 
there less of a proud aristocracy in any form to trample 
on the rights of the poor, or, until a late period of 
their kingdom, of a merciless oppression of the lower 
orders of the people. No nobler people, no better or- 
ganized community ever existed, than the ancient 
Hebrews. Inured to honourable industry, wealthy, 
but without ostentatious magnificence, ready at a mo- 
ment's call to resist every attack upon their country's 
freedom, with an honest pride exulting in their rever- 
ed ancestry, they may well be regarded, during the 
more auspicious periods of their history, as the noblest 
specimen of a free and independent nation. The 
proud descendant of Abraham was not always what 
he is now. " Many that are first shall be last, and 
many that are last shall be first." We may conceive 
of the sadness and despondency with which some 
lineal son of the ancient family of God, seated by the 
rivers of some modern Babylon, would exclaim, " how 
shall I sing the Lord's song in a strange land !" And 
we may easily conceive of the high enthusiasm that 
would enkindle in his bosom as he turns his thoughts 
in prospect toward the hills of his own loved Pales- 

* Graves' Lectures on the Pentateuch. 



CIVIL LIBERTY. S9 

tine, and anticipates the time when his people shall 
be no longer a hissing and a by-word among the na- 
tions. How would his eye kindle, as by the hght of 
prophecy he beholds the lion of the tribe of Judah dis- 
place the crescent that even now waves over the 
ruined temple, and the mosque of Omar fall before 
the man who in the visions of God had a ^' line of flax 
and a measuring reed in his hand," to rebuild the 
walls that are once more to contain the emblems of 
the divine presence and glory ! How would his heart 
beat with hope as such visions passed before him, and 
taking his harp from the willows, with what emotions 
would he again sing, " The Lord is my strength and 
song, and he is become my salvation ; he is my God, 
and I will prepare him an habitation ; my father's God, 
and I will exalt him." 

" Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty." 
The love of liberty thus expressed in the Old Testa- 
ment is still more clearly indicated by the Christian, 
dispensation. One of the most unfounded objections 
to Christianity that ever originated with designing, or 
was believed by foolish men, is that it is adapted to 
subject the many to the few. So far from this, it is 
the only reUgion which honestly and efl'ectually con- 
sults the interests of men for time, as well as eternity. 
It is the only instrument by which the poor can 
defend their rights and resist the encroachments of 
the proud and oppressive. The whole spirit and 
genius of Christianity are everywhere friendly to 
freedom. It teaches us that men of every tribe, lan- 
guage, clime and colour, are the creatures of God. 
It announces that the great Creator " hath made of 
one blood all nations of men to dwell on the face of 
the earth." It pronounces the incidental, and circum- 
stantial, and temporary distinctions between men, as 



90 CIVIL LIBERTY. 

of minor consequence, and of no account whatever, 
when compared with the great points of simiUtude 
which result from their common origin, their common 
depravity, their common suffering, common depend- 
ence, and common responsibihties. 

It is remarked of the divine Founder of the Chris- 
tian faith, that the "common people heard him 
gladly/^ He was himself one of the common people. 
He was raised from an obscure family in Israel, and 
was from the humbler walks of hfe. All his sympa- 
thies were with the common people. He knew the 
heart of the suffering and oppressed, and was touched 
with the feeling of their infirmities. Of the same 
character were his Apostles, and the principal teachers 
of his religion. And of the same character do we 
find all their doctrines and precepts. " To the poor 
the gospel is preached.'^ " In Christ Jesus, there is 
neither Greek nor Jew, barbarian nor Scythian, bond 
nor free.'^ " The cultivated heathen," says Tholuck, 
" were offended at Christianity precisely for this 
reason, that the higher classes could no longer have 
precedence of the common people. ''* We have very 
justly regarded the kingdom of Spain, as furnishing 
no very enviable exhibition of civil liberty. But 
notv/ithstanding all the corruptions of Christianity in 
that papal kingdom, evidence is not wanting, that 
it exerted some influence at least in restraining arbi- 
trary power. In the last hours of the distinguished 
Queen Isabella, a recent and accomplished historian 
of our own country informs us, that " she expressed 
her doubts as to the legality of the revenue of the 
alcavalas, constituting the principal income of the 
crown. She directed a commission to ascertain 

* Biblical Repository. Vol. 11. 



CIVIL LIBERTY. 91 

whether it were originally intended to be perpetual, 
and if this were done with the free consent of the 
people : enjoining her heirs in that event, to collect 
the tax so that it should press least heavily on her 
subjects. Should it be found otherwise, however, 
she directs that the legislature be summoned to devise 
measures for supplying the wants of the crown, 
measures depending for their validity on the good 
pleasure of the subjects of the realm."* 

Never, with the Bible in our hands, can we deny 
rights to another, which under the same circum- 
stances we would claim for ourselves. " Christianity," 
says Montesquieu, " is a stranger to despotic power." 
" The religion," says De Tocqueville, " which de- 
clares that all are equal in the sight of God, will not 
refuse to acknowledge that all citizens are equal in 
the eye of the law." Elsewhere, this elegant and 
instructive writer remarks, " Religion is the companion 
of liberty in all its battles and all its conflicts ; the 
cradle of its infancy and the divine source of its 
claims." Nor is it any unusual thing for the friends 
of liberty in France to speak in terms of enthusiastic 
commendation of the republicanism of the Scriptures. 
Even the Abbe de La Mennais, whom a late writer 
distinguishes as one of the most powerful minds in 
Europe, little as he regards Christianity as a revela- 
tion from God, familiarly speaks of its Author as the 
Great Republican of his age. Our distinguished 
countryman, the late Dewitt Clinton, in a highly 
polished address before the New York Alpha of the 
Phi Beta Kappa, writes the following thoughts which 
are truly worthy of his character as a statesman, 
and his creed as a believer in divine revelation. 

* Prescott's History of the Reign of Ferdinand and Isabella. 



92 CIVIL LIBERTY. 

*' Christianity is in its essence, its doctrines, and its 
forms, republican. It teaches our descent from a 
common pair ; it inculcates the natural equality of 
mankind : and it points to our origin and our end, to 
our nativity and our graves, and to our immortal 
destinies, as illustrations of this impressive truth." 
And what is more to our purpose, considering the 
prepossessions which the virriter has so often avowed 
against the religion of the New Testament, the author 
of Travels, in England, France, Spain and the Bar- 
bary States, pays the following unreluctant homage 
to the beneficial influence which Christianity exerts 
upon civil liberty. After landing in France from the 
last named country, he remarks, "I could breathe 
freely, speak freely, I no longer viewed my fellow 
men with distrust, and I thanked God that I was in a 
Christian land."* 

And what is the language of facts ? Whence, 
with the exception of slavery in the United States, 
an evil brought into the country originally under 
the authority of the British government, and con- 
tinued in defiance of all the remonstrances of our 
ancestors, whence is that equality of condition which 
is so indicative of liberty, so much more complete 
in Christian countries, than in any other part of 
the world ? Who but a Christian poet has ever 
sung, 

" 'Tis Liberty alone that gives the flower 
Of fleeting life its lustre and perfume ; 
And we are weeds without itl" 

Every where the men whose minds have been im- 

* Travels in England, France, Spain and the Barbary States, by 
Mordecai M. Noah. 



i 



CIVIL LIBERTY. 93 

biied with the Hght and sphit of the Holy Scriptures, 
have been the devoted friends of civil liberty. Such 
were the Lollards in England, the adherents of Luther 
in Germany, and of John Knox in Scotland. Such 
was Holland, when her sturdy republican virtues, the 
learning and piety of her clergy, and the excellence 
of her moral and literary institutions spread her fame 
throughout the earth. Such was Switzerland, not 
only during those periods when she was most free, 
but those in which she struggled, however unsuccess- 
fully, for her freedom. Such were the protestant 
non-conformists from the days of the Reformation to 
the death of Queen Elizabeth. Such Avere the Pres- 
byterians in the days of the first Charles. Such were 
others, who, though in some respects misguided men, 
laid their hands upon the Bible, and boldly pro- 
claimed, that " resistance to tyrants is obedience to 
God.'' Such were those noble men, the Huguenots 
of New York and New Jersey, as well as others of 
their suffering companions, who fled from France, 
and sealed their testimony with their blood, on the 
fatal revocation of the edict of Nantes. Such also 
were the Puritans of New England, who, through the 
favour of Divine Providence, opposed, though not a 
bolder, a more successful resistance to despotic power. 
With the courage of heroes and the zeal of martyrs, 
they struggled for and obtained the charter of liberty 
now enjoyed by the British nation. Even the his- 
torian, Hume, whose prepossessions all lay on the 
side of absolute monarchy, and who was sufficiently 
prejudiced against the Bible, was constrained to the 
confession, " that the precious spark of liberty had 
been kindled and was preserved by the Puritans 
alone, and that it was to this sect the English owe 
the whole freedom of their constitution." It has 



94 CIVIL LIBERTY. 

been common with a certain class of writers to speak 
evil of these excellent men. Those who would not 
do this ignorantly, should acquaint themselves with 
their character as it is exhibited in Brodie's British 
Empire, from the accession of Charles I. to the Resto- 
ration ; in Vaughan's Stuart Dynasty ; in Godwin's 
History of the Commonwealth, and in Bishop Burnet's 
History of his own times. The general character of 
the dissenters of the independent denominations in 
England, also verifies the scope and spirit of these 
remarks. On the celebrated motion in the House of 
Lords, for inquiry into the cause of the death of 
the devoted missionary, Smith, in Demarara, Lord 
Brougham spoke of the Independents as a " body of 
men to be held in lasting veneration for the unshaken 
fortitude with which, in all times, they have main- 
tained their attachment to civil liberty : men, to 
whose ancestors England will ever acknowledge a 
boundless debt of gratitude, as long as freedom is 
prized among us. For they, I fearlessly confess it, 
they, with whatever ridicule some may visit their 
excesses, or with whatever blame others — they, with 
the zeal of martyrs, the purity of early Christians, the 
skill and courage of the most renowned warriors, 
obtained for England the free constitution she now 
enjoys." 

It is worthy of remark, that the Bible recognizes 
and maintains the only principle on which it is pos- 
sible for a nation ever to enjoy the blessings of civil 
liberty. That principle is, that all that is valuable in 
the institutions of civil liberty rests on the character 
which the people sustain as citizens. The fear of 
God is the foundation of political freedom. 

"He is the freeman whom the truth makes free, 
And all are slaves beside." 



CIVIL LIBERTY. 95 

Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is impossible 
that a nation of infidels or idolaters should be a nation 
of freemen. It is when a people forget God, that 
tyrants forge their chains. The principles of liberty 
and the principles of the Bible are most exactly coin- 
cident. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted pub- 
lic conscience, is incompatible with freedom. Nothing 
short of the strong influence of that system of truth 
which God has revealed from heaven is competent so 
to guide, moderate, and preserve the balance between 
the conflicting interests and passions of men, as to 
prepare them for the blessings of free government. 
Holland was free so long as she was virtuous. She 
was a flourishing republic, she produced great and 
enlightened statesmen, until she became corrupt, and 
infidelity spoiled her of her glory. France would 
have become free on the accession of her present citi- 
zen king, but for the radical deficiency in her moral 
virtue. When the distinguished Perrier, who suc- 
ceeded La Fayette in the ofiice of prime minister to 
Louis Philippe, was on his bed of death, he exclaimed 
with great emphasis and fervour. La France doit 
avoir line religion ! " France mi/i-^ have religion.'' 
Liberty cannot exist without morality, nor morality 
without the religion of the Bible. It is a nation's 
love of law, its love of wise and benevolent institu- 
tions, its attachment to the public weal, its peace- 
ful and benevolent spirit, its love of virtue, and these 
alone, that can make it free. Take these away 
and there must be tyrants in their place. I hold no 
axiom more true or more important than this, that 
man must be governed by moral truth or despotic 
power. As soon as a nation becomes corrupt, her 
liberties degenerate into faction; and then nothing 
short of the strong arm of despotism will restrain the 



96 CIVIL LIBERTY. 

passions of men, and control their pride, their selfish- 
ness, their love of gold, their thirst for domination, and 
their brutal licentiousness. The Bible alone is the 
source of that high-toned moral principle which is 
necessary to all classes, in all their intercourse, for the 
exercise of all their rights, and the enjoyment of all 
their privileges. Without it, rulers become tyrants, 
and the people are fitted Duly for servitude, or anar- 
chy. Without it, there is no such thing as an intelli- 
gent, lofty, ardent, honourable and disinterested cha- 
racter. Nothing else is capable of combining a nation 
into one great brotherhood ; annihilating its divisions ; 
quenching its hate ; destroying its spirit of party ; 
bringing all parts with all their jarring interests into 
one great whole, and inscribing on the banner, forever 
sacred to freedom and virtue, B plurihus unum. 
Nothing else will rightly control its suffrages ; send up 
a salutary influence into its senate chamber; diffuse 
its power through all ranks of ofiice ; direct learning 
and laws ; act on commerce and the arts, and spread 
that hallowed influence through every department of 
society that shall render its liberties perpetual. States- 
men may be slow to learn from the Bible ; but they 
will find no surer guide to political skill and foresight. 
The common people may be slow to learn from the 
Bible ; but they will no where find their interests so 
watchfully protected, and their liberties defended with 
such ability and so many counsels of wisdom. The 
designs of ambitious and intriguing men, the artifices 
of demagogues, the usurpations of power, the cor- 
rupting influence of high places, and the punishment 
of political delusion, all find their prototype and anti- 
dote in the principles, prophecies, biography, and his- 
tory of the JBible. Where may a people learn a more 
affecting lesson, than in the succession of weak and 



CIVIL LIBERTY. 97 

wicked princes, from the death of Josiah to the de- 
struction of the city and temple, and the capture of 
Zedekiah, by Nebuchadnezzar ? Read the history of 
the subtle and traitorous Absalom. Bold, valiant, and 
revengeful; haughty, eloquent and popular, he "stole 
the hearts of the people ;" expelled his venerable 
father from Jerusalem ; and having conciliated the 
atfections of a misguided and deceived populace, 
became after a short period as much the object of 
their contempt, as he was before the object of their 
veneration. Were such a monument as Absalom's 
pillar of stones erected over the body of every dema- 
gogue at the present day, it might be a wholesome 
comment upon the influence the Bible exerts upon 
the principles of civil liberty. Read, too, the history 
of Jeroboam the son of Nebat ; a base idolater, the 
descendant of a slave, a turbulent, ambitious prince, 
a fugitive from public justice, corrupt and intriguing, 
raised to supreme power by an unprincipled majority, 
corrupting and destroying the people, drying up the 
sources of national wealth, entaiUng poverty and 
abjectness upon the ten tribes to the latest generation, 
and drawing down upon them the wrath of heaven 
for twenty successive reigns, and more than two cen- 
turies after his death ! Contrast also the reign of 
Solomon with the reign of Jeroboam ; the reign of 
Asa with the reign of Ahab ; the reign of Jehoash 
with the reign of Jehoahaz ; and you will form a just 
estimate of good rulers, and see what a fearful scourge 
wicked rulers are to their subjects. The God of the 
Bible is the King of nations. The Lord is with them 
while they are with him. Creation and providence 
are under his control. With all their influences, all 
their power, all their glory, they are under him as the 
Prince of its princes, the Lord of its lords, and all sub- 



98 CIVIL LIBERTY, 

servient to his designs. A heathen prince was once 
constrained to say, that " his dominion is an everlast- 
ing dominion, and his kingdom is from generation to 
generation." His service is freedom ; ahenation from 
his empire is the veriest bondage. 

The land we Hve in is a Christian land. The Bible 
is here recognized as true ; and in our own State, has 
been solemnly decided as constituting a part of the 
common law. We shall be a free people, only as we 
remain a Christian people. If a low and degraded 
infidelity should ever succeed in its already begun 
enterprise of sending up from the whole face of this 
land her poisonous exhalations, and the youth of our 
country become regardless of the God of their fathers ; 
men in other lands who have been watching for our 
downfall, will in a few short years enroll us on the 
catalogue of enslaved nations. You will have a part 
to act on this great theatre, my young friends, when 
older heads shall sleep beneath the clods of the valley. 
Act it like Christian men. Love your country ; and 
for your country's sake, hold those in detestation 
who disturb her peace, and tamper with the minds of 
the young for the purposes of office and gain. It will 
be in vain that infidel politicians plot the ruin of this 
fair land, if her young men remain firm to the inte- 
rests of moral virtue and the Bible. Would that my 
voice could reach the ear of every young man in the 
land, and announce to him, how much his country 
expects from every intelligent friend of the Bible. 
There is no want of effort to corrupt and demoralize 
the young men of this nation ; and when once this is 
done, they in their turn will become the corrupters 
and demoralizers of others, until the nation becomes 
ripened for ruin. The Bible is your protection. There 
is a natural propensity in the human mind to lawless 



CIVIL LIBERTY. 99 

indulgence, and to hostility to all those systems of hu- 
man government that are based on the word of God. 
Beware of being carried down this fatal current. 
There is nothing that may be so safely trusted in the 
formation of your political sentiments and influence, 
as the Bible. I have never known a great political 
struggle in a Christian land which was not a great 
moral struggle, and would not have been decided in 
an hour by the appropriate influence of the Bible. 
Here is the danger of this Republic. So long as the 
Bible remains our glory and happiness, our liberties 
will remain ; but beyond this, there is nothing to for- 
bid the fear, that we shall gradually become an en- 
slaved nation. 

But I must close, with a single thought more. "If 
the Son make you free, ye shall be free indeed. ^^ Seri- 
ously considered, other liberty is an imaginary theory, 
an iUusion, a name, a sound. You may chant its 
praises and celebrate its conquests, and yet be slaves. 
You may deify it, and erect to it monuments, and build 
its altars, and pour upon them costly libations, and yet 
be the slaves of sin. But there is a liberty that is 
worth the name. It is that intellectual and moral con- 
dition of the soul which constitutes her highest excel- 
lence and glory. It is that spiritual liberty, that Christian 
freedom, that liberty of mind, and conscience, and 
heart, which through divine grace the soul enjoys, 
when she breaks the bonds of her iniquity and pos- 
sesses the liberty of the children of God. It is to be 
no longer the servant of sin ; no longer the slave of 
passion ; no longer in bondage to vanity, pride, self 
and the world ; but to be the loyal and happy subject 
of the divine government, the renovated citizen of the 
commonwealth of Israel, and the servant of that divine 
Master, whose every requisition is a benefit, whose 

9 



100 CIVIL LIBERTY. 

every command is a promise, and in whose service 
every sacrifice becomes a favour, every act of self- 
denial a blessing. Such a man is free, free every 
where ; free in solitude, free in the midst of the world, 
free in his abundance, free in his poverty, free in life, 
free in death, always free, " free forever, because he is 
forever with God." 



LECTUKE V. 

THE SCRIPTURES THE FOUNDATION OP RELIGIOUS 
LIBERTY AND THE RIGHTS OF CONSCIENCE. 

Having at our last opportunity expressed a few- 
thoughts in relation to the influence of the Bible upon 
civil liberty and human governments, I propose to 
devote the present lecture to a consideration of the in- 
fluence it exerts upon religious liberty and the rights 
of conscience. The subject is one of no common 
magnitude. Who, had he no other alternative, would 
not cheerfully consent to become the vassal of the 
most despotic government on the earth, where the 
rights of conscience were respected, than the citizen 
of the freest republic, where these rights are denied ? 
Of all human rights, the rights of conscience are the 
most sacred and inviolate. Civil liberty relates to 
things seen and temporal, religious liberty to things 
unseen and eternal ; civil liberty relates to the body, 
religious liberty to the soul ; and which may be the 
'more readily dispensed with, no honest and virtuous 
mind can be long in deciding. 

By religious liberty, I mean the right of every man 

to adopt and enjoy whatever opinions he chooses on 

religious subjects, and to worship the Supreme Being 

according to the dictates of his own conscience, with- 

101 



102 RELIGIOUS LIBERTY AND 

out any obstruction from the law of the land. Reli- 
gious toleration is the allowance of religious opinions 
and modes of worship, when different from those esta- 
bhshed by law. Religious liberty disclaims all right 
of law to control men in their opinions and worship. 
Religious toleration implies the existence and the 
modified exercise of power in such control ; religious 
liberty implies that no such power exists, and none 
such is assumed. The most perfect religious liberty 
exists in that community, where there is no such thing 
as toleration, because there is no need of it. None 
desires, or can conceive of a greater degree of reli- 
gious liberty than that which exists under a govern- 
ment, where one religious denomination, has as good 
a right as another, to the free and unobstructed enjoy- 
ment of its creed and worship. 

If we mistake not, this greatest and most inalienable 
of all human rights is one of the last that has been 
respected by civil governments, and has found a refuge 
only in the well-defined principles and mild auspices 
of the Christian dispensation. On how many a page 
of pagan history, do you find the melancholy fact 
recorded of men who were condemned to the hemlock 
and the flames, because they would not worship at 
the shrine of idol gods ? The punishment decreed by 
the proud Nebuchadnezzar, that " whosoever falleth 
not down and worshippeth the golden image that he 
had set up, should be cast into the midst of a burning 
fiery furnace," was an ancient and very common 
punishment among the oriental nations, inflicted on 
those who would not worship their idols. Mountains 
of flame have ascended to heaven, and rivers of blood 
have been poured upon the earth, as offerings on the 
altar of a malignant or misguided intolerance. From 
the time that Antiochus laid waste the Holy Land, 



THE RIGHTS OF CONSCIENCE. 103 

and depopulated the city of Jerusalem, to the destruc- 
tion of the infants of Bethlehem by Herod ; from the 
resurrection of the Saviour, to the destruction of Jeru- 
salem by Titus ; from the destruction of Jerusalem, to 
the accession of Constantine to the throne of the 
Roman empire ; the prediction has been most fearfully 
fulfilled, " There was war in heaven : Michael and 
his angels fought, and the dragon fought, and his 
angels." 

The limits of a single lecture do not allow me to 
speak at length of the spirit of intolerance, which has 
in various ages of the world been the fruitful source 
of so much misery and crime. Not volumes merely, 
but libraries have been written without exhausting 
the mournful theme. Jews, Mahometans, Christians, 
and pagans have all, though not always with the 
same ardour and phrensy, been to a greater or less 
degree, involved in this miserable warfare. 

Intolerance towards the Christian faith was early 
expressed by the Jews, at the very birth of Christianity. 
As a nation, they were distinguished for their spiritual 
pride and bigotry, and regarded other nations with a 
haughty superciliousness, which easily matured to 
malignity and persecution. Though at the time when 
our blessed Lord appeared in the flesh, Judaism was 
in the last stages of decay ; though it had the form of 
godliness, and was destitute of its power, and had 
indeed become a sort of practical infidelity, it sum- 
moned and collected all its remaining vigour to oppose 
the gospel of the Son of God. Though it was split 
tip into a great variety of sects and parties, yet fear- 
ful of the influence of Christianity, jealous of its 
power, trembling for their own prerogative, the Jewish 
priests and rulers not only lost no opportunity of indulg- 
ing themselves in the extremes of contumely and abuse 

9* 



104 RELIGIOUS LIBERTY AND 

against the Christians, but did not hesitate to persecute 
them to the death. The Pharisees were formahsts ; the 
Sadducees were infidels ; the Essenes were enthusiasts 
and mystics — deeply imbued with the philosophy of 
the Platonic school, and regarding even their own 
law as a mere allegorical system of mysterious truths. 
But like Herod and Pontius Pilate, all these jarring 
sects forgot their mutual and minor alienations in their 
absorbing enmity to the gospel of Christ. Many of 
them indeed, like the early disciples, and Saul of Tar- 
sus and others on the day of Pentecost, saw the in- 
sufficiency of their own religion, felt the need of a 
surer guide, and became the followers of Christ ; but 
the mass of the nation were violent and uncompro- 
mising in their hostiUty to the Christian faith. They 
pursued the infant Saviour from his cradle to Egypt, 
from Egypt to Nazareth, and from Nazareth to the 
cross. After having satiated their malignity upon 
him, they directed it in all its infuriate madness against 
his disciples. Stephen, James the son of Zebedee, 
and James the Just who presided over the Church at 
Jerusalem, were among the early victims of their 
rage. Sometimes their violence was expressed in 
threatening; sometimes in rash and headlong counsels ; 
sometimes in the imprisonment of the Christians ; and 
sometimes in stripes and death. Nor were their per- 
secutions limited to Palestine. Wherever they were 
scattered throughout the Roman provinces, they 
became the instigators of those feuds among the popu- 
lace, and that violence of the magistracy which de- 
stroyed so many of the harmless followers of Christ.* 
The early Christians had no more bitter enemies than 
the Jews. From the highest seat of power in Jerusa- 

* Vide Mosheim's Institutes of Ecclesiastical History. 



THE RIGHTS OP CONSCIENCE. 105 

lem, down to the lowest publican who sat at the 
receipt of custom, the embodied efforts of the nation, 
both in the Holy Land and out of it, were enlisted 
against Christianity. There was this semblance of 
apology for the Jews. The God of Abraham had 
called them out from among the nations with the 
view of dissociating them from all the varieties and 
forms of pagan idolatry, and until the coming of the 
Messiah, of preserving among them the only remnant 
of the true religion on the earth. They were early 
taught by God himself to regard all other nations with 
suspicion ; to have no intercourse with them ; and to 
prohibit their residence among them until they had 
first renounced their paganism, and become proselytes 
to the faith and worship of the true God. It is a lame 
apology ; but like one of their own misguided coun- 
trymen, they often " did it ignorantly and in unbelief." 
They were strongly attached to their own national, 
religious peculiarities ; and yet nothing could be more 
contrary to the genius of their own religion, than the 
pride, envy and mahgnity, with which they arrayed 
those peculiarities against Christianity. Nothing 
could be more contrary to the light of their own sym- 
bols, prophecies, and law. Nothing could be more 
contrary to the overwhelming testimony that Jesus 
was the Son of God. And yet they have ever been 
an intolerant people, and have extended their intole- 
rance not less to their own countrymen, who renounced 
the Jewish religion, than to strangers. Wherever 
they have been in power, they have always been an 
intolerant people. When Mordecai was prime minis- 
ter at the Persian Court under the reign of Artaxerxes 
Longimanus, " many of the people of the land became 
Jews, because the fear of the Jews came upon them." 
The Jews had authority and they exercised it so 



106 RELIGIOUS LIBERTY AND 

effectually, that the Persians professed Judaism through 
fear. We know too what an iron sceptre their rulers 
swayed, and under what a reign of terror the nation 
groaned in subsequent ages. There was no such 
thing as religious liberty. If any man confessed 
Christ, he " was put out of the synagague ;" he was 
pronounced an outlaw ; his property was confiscated ; 
he was denied all the charities of hfe ; his person was 
put beyond the protection of the government ; and 
the man that killed him was thought to have done 
God service. 

If from the Jews, we turn to the Mahometans, we 
have the same melancholy picture. Like a furious 
torrent, the religion of the false prophet laid waste 
Asia, Africa, and a great part of Europe. It was 
introduced at a period of the world, when the cor- 
ruptions of Christianity and the divisions throughout 
Christendom invited the enterprise of some bold, and 
ardent mind, and when the customs and passions of 
men, and the circumstances of the times were easily 
made subservient to such a design. The spirit of in- 
tolerance also which existed among the Christians 
proved a favourable event for the advancement of 
Mahometanism. Justinian had previously commenced 
his persecutions ; he had destroyed the Samaritans in 
Palestine ; and their posterity probably embraced the 
new religion out of hatred to the Christians, and in 
consequence of the severe edicts published against 
them by the Roman emperors. The Roman and 
Persian monarchies were also on the decline ; and 
Mahomet had discernment enough to turn all these 
favourable opportunities to his own advantage. It 
is scarcely necessary to say, that Mahomet boldly 
professed to convert the nations by the sword. It was 
one of the main pillars of his system, that paradise 



THE RIGHTS OF CONSCIENCE. 107 

was the reward of extirpating those who would not 
become his followers. It was his maxim, that " the 
sword is the key of heaven and of hell." The Jews 
were more the objects of his hatred than any other 
sect. He utterly destroyed them in Arabia, confis- 
cated their property, and subjected them to tortures. 
He would not condescend to allow them to become 
his followers, and gave testimony of the hatred he 
bore them in his last hours. " May God curse the 
Jews," said he, " for they have made temples of the 
sepulchres of their prophets !" With this exception, 
the alternative he offered to his enemies was, to 
acknowledge the true God and his prophet, pay tribute, 
or die. And with this alternative, he subdued a 
great part of the world. His first conquests were in 
Arabia, Persia, and Syria. Subsequently his suc- 
cessors subdued Egypt and Africa, from the Nile to 
the Atlantic Ocean. After the Saracens became 
Mahometans, they overran and desolated the Roman 
empire, and made the most fearful devastation of the 
oriental churches. Not satisfied with these con- 
quests, they penetrated into Spain and France ; sub- 
sequently attached the Turks, to their standard, 
became masters of the fairest portions of Europe, 
and planted the crescent on the walls of Constanti- 
nople. The mildest feature in the reUgion of Mahomet 
was, that he did not deny that the followers of any 
religion might be saved, if their actions were virtuous. 
And yet strange to say, wherever he came in contact 
with men, he recognized no rights of conscience, no 
degree of religious liberty. Wherever his followers 
went, it was Islamism, tribute, or death.* 



*Vide Sale's Koran, Picart's Ceremonies, and Herbelot's Bib- 
liotheque Orientale. 



108 RELIGIOUS LIBERTY AND 

The pagan world too has fiercely set itself against 
the Lord and against his Anointed. With few excep- 
tions, the pagan nations cannot be said to have 
expressed any great degree of intolerance toward one 
another. They have been bitter persecutors of the 
religion of the Old and New Testaments, but not 
often persecutors of paganism itself. Though plunged 
in the grossest superstition, and though almost every 
nation had its own peculiar deities, this variety of 
gods and religions was rarely the source even of 
division or animosity. Dr. Mosheim observes, that 
the Egyptians are an exception to this remark ; while 
at the same time he confesses, that " the Egyptian 
wars, waged to avenge their gods, cannot properly 
be called religious wars, not being undertaken either 
to propagate, or to suppress any one form of religion." 
The Roman empire, in the days of her pagan princes, 
became drunk with the blood of Christendom. Before 
the close of the first century, the power of the gospel 
was felt throughout that vast empire. But its suc- 
cesses only roused the dormant hostility of its foes. 
After the demolition of the Jewish state by Vespasian, 
a series of persecutions against Christianity was com- 
menced, beginning under Nero, in the thirty-first 
year of the Christian era, and extending to the reign 
of Dioclesian, including about three centuries of as 
bitter suffering and cruelty as men were ever called 
to endure. The Christian religion was deemed a 
"detestable superstition," and the Christian name 
contemptible to a proverb. Under the reign of Nero, 
no class of men were considered more the enemies 
of mankind than the Christians; and notwithstanding 
the purity and benevolence of their character, they 
incurred the hatred of the pagan world, were ob- 
noxious to its fury, torn by wild beasts, consumed by 



THE RIGHTS OP CONSCIENCE. 109 

fire, and in such multitudes that the streets of Rome, 
night after night, were illuminated by the fearful 
conflagrations. In the latter part of the reign of 
Domitian, who succeeded to the empire in the year 
eighty-one, all the horrors of Nero's persecution were 
renewed. Under Trajan, the persevering profession 
of Christianity was by law a capital offence. It was 
by his order, that Ignatius the bishop of Antioch was 
carried a prisoner from that city to Rome, and thrown 
to the wild beasts in the amphitheatre. After Trajan, 
Marcus Antoninus, though a prince so universally 
popular that the gratitude of Rome at his death 
enrolled him among the gods, became the implacable 
enemy of Christianity, subjected its disciples to tor- 
ture, and put to death whole churches. It was under 
his reign that Justin Martyr, Polycarp, the martyrs 
of Lyons and Vienne, became victims of the ghastly 
tortures and bloody animosity of the pagans. After 
him, torrents of blood were shed by Severus, in 
Africa and Egypt ; and many a Christian female, like 
those noble women Felicitas and Perpetua, was 
stripped, scourged and thrown to the wild beasts, 
exclaiming, as the latter did to her weeping friends, 
" Continue ficin in the faith, love one another, and be 
not offended at our sufferings !" After him, the 
spirit of persecution broke out in all its horrors under 
Decius, whose cruel and terrible edicts were executed 
with a variety and intenseness of newly invented 
suffering. The successor of Decius was Gallus, whose 
short reign was distinguished by such severity of 
persecutions and such a collection of human miseries, 
that Cyprian, the bishop of Carthage, himself a martyr 
to the Christian faith, thought that the reign of Anti- 
christ was come, and the final judgment near at hand. 
During tlie early part of the reign of Valerian, the 



110 RELIGIOUS LIBERTY AND 

church found in him a friend and protector ; but after 
a short truce of three years, as one of the most 
memorable instances of the instabiUty of the human 
character, he commenced a deadly persecution. After 
Valerian, a general persecution, instigated by the 
pagan priests, broke out under the reign of Dioclesian, 
who demolished the temples of the Christians, burned 
their sacred books, deprived them of all civil rights 
and honours, and consigned them to torture and 
flames. This persecution raged against all sorts of 
men who bore the Christian name ; and with the 
exception of France, pervaded the whole Roman 
world. As evidence of the severity of this persecution, 
a coin was struck under the reign of this detestable 
persecutor, with this inscription, ''Nomine Christian- 
orum deleto^^ — "The Christian name extinguished.'^* 
Thus was this vast pagan empire, this colossal power, 
extending itself from the straits of Gibraltar to the 
Caspian sea, covering all Europe, and having its ter- 
ritories even in Africa and the south of Britain, 
combined almost as with the counsels and heart of 
one man, against the gospel of Christ. All ranks and 
conditions of men seemed bent on its destruction; 
emperors trembUng for their crowns, priests for their 
gold, philosophers for their systems, and the common 
people the more terrible for their ignorance and 
superstitions. It was indeed a dark day to the church. 
One universal cry of persecution and death might 
have been heard from Jerusalem to Ephesus, from 
Ephesus to Rome, from Rome to the provinces of 
Gaul. 

It were devoutly to be wished that we could say 
with truth, that the Christian Church was herself 

* Vide Moslieim, Milner and Lardner. 



THE RIGHTS OP CONSCIENCE. Ill 

pure from the spirit of intolerance, and the blood of 
persecution. It is a most melancholy retrospect to 
look back upon the slow progress of religious liberty, 
even in the visible Church of God. The world has 
no where seen greater evidences of the imperfection 
of men, of the blindness of the human heart, of the 
dangers of an excited state of mind in religious con- 
troversies, and of the influence of the spirit of the age 
and times in which men live, than in the tardy growth 
of religious liberty even under the light of Christian 
truth. It is indeed a melancholy retrospect to look 
back upon the very slow progress of religious tolera- 
tion in our world. The principles of religious liberty 
seem to have been understood by few of any religious 
denomination, until a very late period. The human 
mind seems to have been enveloped in an unaccount- 
able hallucination on this plain subject ; and ages and 
men, otherwise distinguished for discretion, for piety, 
and even for moral grandeur, have been scarcely less 
distinguished for an intolerance and bigotry utterly at 
war with the spirit of Christianity, and a lasting re- 
proach to the Christian name. Not a little watch- 
fulness is necessary, even on the part of the best of 
men, before they will cultivate a kind spirit toward 
those who dissent from them on subjects so important 
as the various topics of their religious faith. No man, 
and no set of men, know what they will do, till they 
have power. The pride of power, and power too 
over the conscience, a pride which, while it seems to 
be associated with the love of the truth, is at heart 
associated with that subtle self-complacency which 
says, " Stand by thyself for I am holier than thou ;" 
a pride which, while it conceals its true motives under 
the pretence of contending earnestly for the faith, can- 
not suppress the ostentatious claim of Jehu, " Come 

10 



112 RELIGIOUS LIBERTY AND 

see my zeal for the Lord/' this is the height, the 
giddy height from which intolerance and persecution 
have in every age pronounced the doom of the humble 
followers of the crucified Saviour. DiiTerent depart- 
ments of the visible Church have differed widely in 
their views and conduct in relation to this subject. 
The Romish Church ever has been the great enemy 
of religious liberty. Witness her assumption of the 
civil power, when princes bowed at her feet, and re- 
ceived their crowns at her hands ; when nations trem- 
bled before her, and were anathematized at her plea- 
sure. Witness her slaying of the witnesses for the 
truth throughout Germany, France and Britain. 
Witness her persecutions in the valleys of Piedmont 
and the rocky Alps. Witness the decisions of her 
councils, the development of her secret plots and con- 
spiracies, her open invasions and blood. Witness the 
history of that dark and sanguinary tribunal, the In- 
quisition. Think of the blood which deluged Bohemia 
for thirty years. Think of the massacre in the reign 
of Charles IX. of France, when that heartless prince 
boasted of having slaughtered three hundred thousand 
protestants. Advert too, to the intolerance of Louis 
XIV. and of Queen Mary of England, when the pre- 
diction was so memorably verified, that " it was given 
to the beast to make war with the saints and to over- 
come them." Nor has she reformed in principle from 
that hour to the present; but is still the same unchang- 
ing enemy to rehgious liberty, and the rights of con- 
science, as the actual influence of her doctrines, her 
precepts, and her practices every where evinces. It 
was foretold that antichrist should " wear out the 
saints of the most High,'* and that the " scarlet-colour- 
ed beast should be drunken with the blood of the 
saints." And these predictions have been mourfully 



THE RIGHTS OF CONSCIENCE. 113 

fulfilled ill the oppression, cruelty and intolerance 
which have ever distinguished the Church of Rome. 
Intolerance is the natural and genuine effect of her 
whole system. " Toleration/' says Bossuet, who was 
far from being a violent Romanist, " toleration is not a 
mark of the true Church."* Uniformly has the " Son 
of perdition " maintained the right to persecute even 
unto death, every deviation from his creed, and every 
secession from his family. By the solemn decisions 
of his councils, still unrevoked, heresy and schism are 
" mortal sins." 

But while we say that the Romish Church has been, 
and still is, the great enemy, with ingenuous shame 
must we confess that the Protestant Church has not 
always been the friend of religious freedom. It was 
no doubt more the fault of the age, than of the man, 
that Calvin abetted the condemnation of Servetus. 
But what a comment upon the spirit of the age ! The 
law which condemned heretics to the flames, was re- 
tained by the Protestant churches of England during 
one hundred and thirty years. And long after Pro- 
testantism was finally established at the revolution in 
Scotland, it framed the solemn League and Covenant 
for the extirpation of prelacy by the sword. There 
is no more humbling view than that which is presented 
by this single feature in the history of the Church. At 
one moment she is the persecuted of her pagan neigh- 
bours; at the next, the persecutor of some of her own 
family. Scarcely has she rest from her external foes, 
and the wounds are staunched that were opened by 
the sword of the unbelieving, than she herself turns it 
against her own children ! And yet, the bitterness of 
this spirit has been allayed by the gospel. The vehe- 
mence of this fierce orthodoxy has been gradually 

* Bossuet'is History of the Variations of Protestants. 



114 RELIGIOUS LIBERTY AND 

subsiding, and its unfeeling, icy rigour melting away, 
in proportion as the Sun of Righteousness has been 
gaining a gradual ascendency over the mind ; and as 
the Church has become wiser and better, she has be- 
come the more consistent friend and advocate of reli- 
gious liberty. 

The principles of religious liberty are clearly reveal- 
ed in the New Testament. And what are those prin- 
ciples ? They are in the first instance that the Holy 
Scriptures are the only source of authority in matters 
of religion. It is not remote antiquity ; it is the Bible, 
It is not tradition ; it is the Bible. Tradition is an 
indefinite, intangible thing, found any where, found 
no where. It is not the decision of councils, nor eccle- 
siastical statutes ; it is the Bible. " The word is nigh 
thee, in thy heart, and in thy mouth.^^ 

Another of these principles is, that the Bible secures 
to every man the undeniable and inviolable right of 
private judgment in all matters of rehgious faith and 
duty. This was the doctrine of the great Reforma- 
tion ; this is the doctrine of the New Testament. That 
sacred Book does not more clearly reveal the obliga- 
tions to faith and obedience, than it asserts the right 
of individual thought and opinion founded on the prin- 
ciples of individual, personal responsibility. This the 
Church of Rome denies, and the Scriptures affirm. On 
this point, they have been, and still are at issue. On 
this point also the Church of God has, from age to 
age, been at issue with civil governments, instigated 
as they have been by ecclesiastical establishments, to 
interpose the power of the secular arm to secure uni- 
formity in belief and modes of worship. But what is 
more evident from the New Testament, than that men 
are, in this respect, responsible not to any secular tri- 
bunal, but to God alone j that the Bible is the only 



THE RIGHTS OF CONSCIENCE. 115 

infallible standard, and the Author of the Bible the 
only Judge ? The Scriptures commend those, who, 
with a noble independence of thought and Berean 
character, brought even the instructions of inspired 
apostles to the unerring authority of God's holy word. 
They invite men to read and hear for themselves ; 
humbly and prayerfully to examine every religious 
subject, and employ all their powers in investigating 
the truth ; and when they have done so, solemnly, and 
in the fear of God, to form their own opinions. They 
require them to form, not a wrong judgment, but a 
right one, and make them responsible to the Searcher 
of hearts for the judgment they form. God gives them 
light, and bids them beware how they pervert, or 
abuse it, or call it darkness. Prejudice, and partiality 
and hostility to the truth he allows no man to exer- 
cise. None may form his judgment without evidence, 
nor in opposition to evidence, but according to evi- 
dence ; and if he fails to do this, he must answer it to 
Iiis Maker. " To his own Master he standeth, or 
falleth.'' For this high prerogative God has formed 
him, and given him a supernatural revelation, and laid 
the solemn injunction upon his conscience, "prove all 
things ; hold fast that which is good." The Bible 
gives no man, or set of men, dominion over human 
faith. The apostles themselves expressly disclaimed 
this authority. The maxim of the prophets Vv^as, " to 
the law and the testimony." The direction of the 
Saviour stands out in living characters before the 
world, " call no man master, for one is your Master, 
even Christ." There is no thought enstamped more 
legibly on the pages of holy writ than the individual, 
personal responsibility of every subject of the divine 
government. " If thou be wise, thou shalt be wise 
for thyself; but if thou scornest, thou alone shalt bear 
10* 



116 RELIGIOUS LIBERTY AND 

it/' " Every one of us shall give an account of him- 
self unto God." " Every man shall be judged accord- 
ing to his works ;" works that are the sole expositor 
of his character, because they are the result of affec- 
tions that indicate him to be the enemy or the friend 
of righteousness, as they have grown out of his views 
of divine truth. There would be some semblance of 
reason in submitting our. religious opinions to the 
dictation of men, if they could assume our responsi- 
bility and stand in our place when we stand in the 
judgment; if they could suffer in our stead when we 
and our principles are condemned at the last day. I 
know men may greatly abuse the liberty of forming 
their own religious opinions. They have done so to 
their souls' undoing. I know too that one of the great 
stratagems of the deceiver is this boasted liberty, and 
that many swerve from the faith through the fear of 
not thinking for themselves. But much as this artifice 
of the destroyer is to be detested, better had the right 
of private judgment be abused, than not enjoyed. 
There is no right, without its corresponding obligation. 
The man who abuses the right of private judgment 
has fearful responsibilities. Let him see to them. It 
is at his peril, if " he receives not the love of the truth, 
that he may be saved." 

Another of the great principles of religious liberty 
as disclosed in the New Testament is, that religion is 
a spiritual system, and must be promoted by a moral 
and spiritual influence. A man's opinions do not 
admit of coercion. You may coerce his professions, 
but not his judgment. You may compel him to ac- 
knowledge that he believes what he does not believe; 
you may make him a hypocrite ; but you cannot make 
him a Christian. You cannot reach his understanding 
by pains and penal ties^, nor by any means of this sort 



THE RIGHTS OF CONSCIENCE. 117 

give vigour to his conscience, or affect his heart. You 
may awaken resistance ; you may rouse enmity ; you 
may give hardihood to his obduracy, and make him 
patient in suffering ; but you cannot change his views, 
nor impart hoUness of heart or Hfe. These are pro- 
duced by the blessing of God upon his own truth. 
Men have a part to act in securing this result, but it is 
of no coercive kind. They may reason, expostulate, 
persuade, but it belongs not to men to compel. The 
field of argument and impartial investigation is the 
arena where the truth has ever won her most splendid 
victories. Christianity is no gainer, but has been uni- 
formly the loser by calling in the aid of the secular 
arm. There never was a greater error than in sup- 
posing that the interests of truth and piety were thus 
advanced. We maybe sincerely desirous to deliver men 
from their intellectual and moral aberrations ; we may 
oppose every system of delusion and wickedness, and 
endeavour to break the bondage of the prince of dark- 
ness ; but physical force is not the way to accomplish 
this benevolent end. If you would promote error, 
persecute it. If you would establish false religions 
on a more permanent basis than they have yet occu- 
pied ; if you would enlist the sympathies of men in 
favour of a cause, which otherwise would have no 
sympathy ; persecute it, send its advocates to the stake 
and gibbet, persecute it to the death. " Persecution 
is disgraceful to those who inflict, but honourable to 
those who suffer it. It throws around them the 
charm and glory of a relationship to the apostles and 
prophets, and men of whom the world was not 
worthy.^' Error is not worthy of such an honour. I 
would not persecute error. I would not persecute at 
all ; but, if there must be persecution, let truth have 
the honour of being the victim. There is a God in 



118 RELIGIOUS LIBERTY ANl) 

heaven, and a conscience in the bosoms of men ; and 
it were infinitely better for the cause of righteousness 
to suffer wrong, than do wrong. " In meekness in- 
structing those who oppose themselves, if peradventure 
God will give them repentance, to the acknowledg- 
ment of the truth,' ^ this is the way the Scriptures re- 
commend of opposing error, destroying false religions, 
and turning the world to the service and worship of 
the true God. 

There is still another very obvious principle of re- 
ligious liberty disclosed in the New Testament ; and 
that is, that civil government, as such, has no other 
concern with religion than to respect the rights of 
conscience, and extend to men of all religious names 
and denominations its impartial protection. This is 
all that the true religion solicits of the secular power. 
This is not religious toleration merely, but religious 
hberty. I am acquainted with no writer who has 
discussed this single point with so much ability as the 
celebrated John Locke. He contended with the mon- 
strous error, to which we have already referred, and 
which was so rife during the reigns of the first and 
second Charles, and even through the intervening 
revolution in the days of Cromwell, that men ought 
to be coerced by pains and penalties inflicted by the 
civil power, to profess a definitely prescribed form of 
religious doctrines, and to conform themselves to one 
particular formulary of religious worship. His object 
was to draw the lines of demarcation between the 
Church and the State ; to distinguish between the 
powers of civil government and the powers of religion ; 
and to show that the one is exclusively concerned in 
promoting the spiritual and eternal interests of men, 
and that the other has the care of the commonwealth. 
The province of the civil magistrate, is to secure to 



THE RIGHTS OF CONSCIENCE. 119 

all the members of the body politic, the just enjoy- 
ment of life, hberty, reputation and property. This 
is the whole of its jurisdiction. The care of souls is 
not committed to the civil magistrate, any more than 
to other men. The power of the civil magistrate, 
consisting only in outward force, is of such a kind 
that it can never be applied for rehgious purposes, iu 
any other way than by the impartial execution of 
equal laws for the protection of religious liberty. The 
Church is a dilferent society, formed for different 
objects, and acting within altogether a different juris- 
diction. It is a spiritual community, and clothed Avith 
no temporal power. Its objects are the maintenance 
of the true religion and the true worship of God in 
the world. It has its principles and laws, and is bound 
by the authority of Jesus Christ as its only King and 
Plead. The Church has no more power in the state, 
than the state has in the Church. They are perfectly 
distinct organizations, are pursuing different objects, 
and exercise a different authority. The liberties of 
the state are never in greater jeopardy than when 
the Church is invested with civil power ; while the 
liberties of religion and the Church are sure to be 
endangered by giving ecclesiastical power to the 
state. The Church never acts more out of character, 
or more unworthy of her high calling, than when she 
arrogates to herself the authortity of civil government, 
and endeavours by fire, or sword, or civil disabilities 
of any kind to coerce men to receive her doctrines and 
worship. " My kingdom," says the Saviour, "is not 
of this world ; if my kingdom were of this world, then 
would my servants fight." The Church has no 
secular organization ; no secular head ; no secular 
nature. She may not oppose force to force, as the 
kingdoms of this world do ; nor may she exercise the 



120 RELIGIOUS LIBERTY AND 

force which this world exercises even in the execution 
of her own laws. 

Such are some of the leading principles of religious 
liberty as contained in the New Testament. The 
world is under lasting obligation for the illustration 
and defence of these principles to the Independent 
churches in Great Britain. It was among them that 
the immortal Locke became so deeply imbued with 
that manly liberality of sentiment which distinguished 
him above the men of his age. Lord King, himself 
of the established church, in his life of this celebrated 
philosopher, has the hberality to say, '' By the Inde- 
pendent divines, who were his instructors, Locke was 
taught those principles of religious liberty which they 
were the first to disclose to the world. — As for tolera- 
tion, or any true notion of religious liberty, or any 
general freedom of conscience, we owe them not in the 
least degree to what is called the Church of England. 
On the contrary, we owe all these to the Independents 
in the time of the commonwealth, and to Locke, their 
most illustrious and enlightened disciple.'^ Nor let us 
withhold the honour that is due to the personal exer- 
tions of Cromwell himself. There never was a firmer 
friend to the rights of conscience than Oliver Crom- 
well. It was his interest in the cause of protestantism 
that induced him, on his assumption of the Protectorate 
to choose an alHance with Louis XIV. rather than 
with Spain and Austria. He made his friendship 
valuable to France and Holland, that by their means 
he might exert the greater influence in behalf of reli- 
gious liberty throughout Europe. Nor was his policy 
unavailing. He well nigh controlled the court of 
Versailles during the early part of the reign of Louis. 
It was the common remark in Paris, that Mazarine, 
the prime minister of Louis, " had less fear of the 



THE RIGHTS OF CONSCIENCE. 121 

devil, than of Oliver Cromwell.'^ The suffering pro- 
testants throughout Europe, and even from the con- 
fines of Hungary and Transylvania looked with hope 
toward the English Commonwealth. The suffering 
Vaudois, under the duke of Savoy, long and grate- 
fully remembered his merciful and princely interpo- 
sitions in their behalf, amid the mouldering ruins of 
their depopulated villages. Besides appointing a fast, 
and a general collection throughout England for 
these confessors, he wrote to the duke of Savoy, to 
the king of France, to the kings of Sv/eden and Den- 
mark, and to all the protestant princes in Europe with 
the view of arresting these fearful persecutions. Nor 
" was any part of his negociation with foreign princes 
more acceptable to his country than this."* 

Nor do I refer to these declarations with the less 
reluctance, because I am a Presbyterian. It must be 
confessed that the Presbyterians of Britain were as 
tenacious of civil power as the Episcopalians ; nor 
was there any denomination of Christians at that 
period, except the Independents, who, as a rehgious 
body, recognized to their full extent, the sacred rights 
of conscience, and who while in power accorded to 
others the rights which they advocated for themselves 
under oppression. This praise is awarded them by 
distinguished historians, who were themselves minis- 
ters and members of the estabUshed church.t And 

* For a full account of this, see "The Protectorate of Oliver 
Cromwell, and the State of Europe, during the early part of the 
reign of Louis XIV. illustrated in a series of letters between Dr. 
John Pell, resident ambassador at the Swiss Cantons, Sir Samuel 
Morland, Sir William Lockhart, Mr. Secretary Thurloe, and other 
distinguished men of the time," by Robert Vaughan, D. D. of Lon- 
don University. 

■f Grant's History of the English Church Sects ; Introduction to 
Col. Hutchinson's Memoirs ; Brodie's British Empire. 



122 RELIGIOUS LIBERTY AND 

it is in no small degree to the influence of this very- 
class of men, that the broad principle of rehgious 
liberty holds so prominent a place in the constitution 
of the American States. Such too are the principles 
distinctly recognized in the Confession of Faith and 
Form of Government of the Presbyterian church in 
this land. We have never, in this respect, trodden in 
the steps of transatlantic Presbyterianism. While we 
give an honest preference to our own doctrines and 
discipline, we claim no infallibility ; we invest our- 
selves with no jus divinicm, and cheerfully accede to 
others the same rights and immunities, both civil and 
religious, which we claim for ourselves. Our excel- 
lent Confession of Faith explicitly declares, " God 
alone is Lord of the conscience, and hath left it free 
from the doctrines and commandments of men, which 
are in any thing contrary to his word, or beside it, 
in matters of faith, or worship. So that to believe 
such doctrines, or to obey such commandments out 
of conscience, is to betray true liberty of conscience ; 
and the requiring of an implicit faith and an absolute 
blind obedience, is to destroy liberty of conscience and 
reason also." 

But it will probably be asked, has the church no 
power, no authority over her own members ? Has 
she no discipline ? And may she not admonish, 
rebuke, censure, and even exclude from her commu- 
nion those who reject her doctrines, and pay no 
regard to her worship ? She has all this authority, 
and is bound meekly and firmly to exercise it. She 
is not a voluntary society, associated upon principles 
of human invention, but a society divinely instituted 
and governed by the laws of her redeeming God and 
King. It is indispensable to her prosperity, that she 
be governed ; that she be governed by laws well 



THE RIGHTS OF CONSCIENCE. 123 

defined and understood. She must have rules for 
admitting, controlling, and disciplining her members. 
And her discipline ought to be accordant with the 
high and sacred ends of her divine institution. " Ec- 
clesiastical laws," says Mr. Locke, " are to be enforced 
by exhortations, and advice. Where these fail, there 
remains nothing farther to be done but that such 
stubborn and obstinate persons, who give no ground 
to hope for their reformation, should be cast out and 
separated from the society. This is the last and 
utmost force of ecclesiastical authority." No man 
should complain, because he is made responsible to 
the church with which he has voluntarily united him- 
self by irrevocable bonds. Nor should he, when he 
denounces her doctrines and government, think it a 
hardship if he is required to acknowledge his offence, 
or withdraw from her communion. " A man that is 
an heretic, after the first and second admonition, 
reject !" " If thy brother shall trespass against thee, 
go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone. 
If he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. 
But if he will not hear thee, tell it unto the church ; 
but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto 
thee as an heathen man and a publican !" But he 
must hear, and if he desires it, must be heard. By 
the laws of Christ, the most erring and most vile of 
his professed followers is entitled to a full and impar- 
tial trial. To pronounce sentence, or even the mildest 
judicial admonition, without a hearing, is a direct 
violation of the great principles of religious libert}^, 
the word of God, and the everlasting law of rectitude. 
A church can suffer no greater calamity than the loss 
of such a right. But it were a sad perversion of the 
truth to plead the rights of conscience for the neglect 
of wholesome discipline. ^' The free circulation of the 

11 



124 RELIGIOUS LIBERTY AND 

"blood, and tlie proper discharge of all the animal 
functions^ are not more necessary to the health of the 
body, than the discipKne which Christ has instituted, 
to the spiritual health and prosperity of his body, the 
church.'^ One sickly sheep infects the flock. And a 
black flock would the church indeed be, if she were 
embarrassed and frustrated in attempts to reclaim, or 
exclude those who are unfit for her fellowship. 
" How can two walk together, except they be agreed?" 
Men who are "tossed to and fro and carried about 
with every wind of doctrine," may not, because they 
cannot have any fellowship with that truth which is 
one and immutable. I have given you evidence, by 
an almost thirty years' ministry among you, that I 
am not insensible that the peace of the church is 
broken, her strength divided, and her vigour impaired 
by foolish contentions : but contentions for substantial 
truth are not foolish. Men may " wrap up their 
deceptions in scriptural phrases, and even in language 
which is consecrated by the usage of the Christian 
Church, and yet be apostles of error." 

There are two extremes in the exercise of a faithful 
discipline which every Christian Church should cau- 
tiously avoid. The first is, that it is a matter of 
indifference what religious principles a man adopts, 
and what form of worship he prefers. The Bible 
contains essential principles, principles which consti- 
tute the very elements and essence of the gospel ; 
which must be believed and loved in order to salva- 
tion ; and which are so fundamental, that if any one 
of them should be denied, the denial would, in its 
legitimate consequences, subvert the entire method of 
salvation through Jesus Christ. It forms no part of 
that religious liberty that is founded on the word of 
God, that it is of no consequence what a man believes. 



THE RIGHTS OF CONSCIENCE. 125 

Nowhere is this thought, or feeUng encouraged in 
the Scriptures, but everywhere discouraged, frowned 
upon and denounced. " Keep specially clear," says 
a forcible writer, " of uncommon pretenders to charity, 
Satan will mask his designs as long as he can, and 
so will all his ministers. Believe that God is love, 
that he is the great and essential charity. Be satisfied 
then with as much charity as he has shown, and do 
not think of improving upon your Maker by enter- 
taining and expressing a more charitable opinion of 
sinners than himself." 

The other extreme is, to have no charity at all. 
There are things spoken of in the Bible, which are 
neither fundamental to the gospel, nor essential to 
spJvation, and about which good men may differ. 
Men may be ignorant and uninformed in these things, 
and yet be saved. And I would not dare to say, that 
they may not misunderstand and pervert these things, 
and yet be saved, any more than I would dare to say 
how much indwelling sin is compatible with true 
holiness of heart, or how much remaining unbelief is 
consistent with saving faith. The least truth per- 
verted, as well as the least remaining sin in the heart, 
is without excuse ; while neither of them proves that 
the bosom in which it dwells has no interest in the 
Son of God. I hold it one of the great duties of a 
Christian, to judge severely of himself; of others, 
charitably. " Judge not that ye be not judged. For 
with what judgment ye judge ye shall be judged ; 
and with what measure ye meet, it shall be measured 
to you again." I may not necessarily break charity 
with men as Christians, with whom I would not 
deem it expedient, nor for edification to be united in 
the same ecclesiastical connexions. I would hope not 
to sympathize with their errors ; but I would charitably 



126 RELIGIOUS LIBERTY AND 

impute their errors to causes which may exist in the 
hearts of good men. " Humanum est errare." I may- 
err, as well as they 

"Hanc veniam petimnsque damusqne vicissim." 

The flock of Christ will be a little flock indeed, even 
after it is all gathered in, if there be not many sheep 
that are not of our own fold. The many mansions in 
our Father's house will be but sparsely inhabited, if 
it be not found at the last day that God our Saviour 
can hold fellowship in the Church above, with not a 
few with whom it is not for edification for us to 
maintain ecclesiastical connexions in the Church 
below. The charity that " rejoiceth not in iniquity, 
but rejoiceth in the truth,'' also "beareth all things, 
believeth all things, hopeth all things." As men 
may be heretics, and excluded from the Church 
without being delivered over to the secular arm, so 
they may err in judgment without being heretics. 
They may differ in their religious opinions, and yet 
be Christians; they may differ without animosity, 
without the fury of intolerance, without having re- 
course to courts of law, and without disturbing either 
the public peace, or the charities of social life. 

I do not know that I have expressed your view;?, 
my young friends, in the present lecture. For my- 
self, I solicit no greater liberty of conscience than 
this, and I will not be satisfied with less. It is 
impossible for the Church to flourish either in alliance 
with the civil power, or controlled by its authority, 
except so far forth as it extends an impartial protec- 
tion to her civil rights. Nor is it less impossible for 
her to flourish while composed of essentially jarring 
materials : of the mingled iron and clay : of men 
who believe and profess, and men who disbelieve, 



THE RIGHTS OF CONSCIENCE. 127 

and deny, and ridicule the fundamental doctrines of 
the gospel. 

Liberty of conscience is your birthright. You 
are "not children of the bondwoman, but of the 
free." There is nothing in the Scriptures which 
debars you from full inquiry into all truth, or which 
demands of you an assent to its doctrines without 
an examination of the evidence that they come 
from God. You boast of this liberty. But it is 
this which renders you so fearfully responsible. It 
is this which gives the divine government such re- 
sistless claims\ipon you, if you turn your liberty into 
licentiousness, and under the specious pretence of 
this right, become sceptics, or deists, or the enemies 
of God and his truth. 



11 



LECTURE VI. 

THE MORALITY OF THE BIBLE. 

There is no one particular in which the Bible has 
effected a greater change in the condition of the 
world, than its outward and visible morality. To 
say nothing of that spiritual character upon which 
the Scriptures every where insist, there is not now, 
nor has there been ever, any portion of the world 
where the principles of revealed religion have been 
received, where the most astonishing changes have 
not been produced in the moral habits of society. 
This justice must be done to infidelity, that while it 
has waged war upon the truths of the Bible, it has 
commended its moral precepts ; and while it has 
ridiculed its miracles and prophecies, it has ingenu- 
ously acknowledged that its morality is altogether 
more pure and lofty than that which philosophy ever 
taught. And however involuntarily, or incautiously 
made, such confessions are no unmeaning homage 
rendered to the truth of the sacred Scriptures. For, 
if disjointed, disfigured, mutilated, torn from its 
foundations, and deprived of all its natural life and 
vigour, as it has been by the great mass of infidel 
writers, the morality of the Bible has grandeur and 
excellence enough to extort the commendation of 
128 



THE MORALITY OF THE BIBLE. 129 

its enemies ; what must it be, when undisturbed from 
its foundations, unsevered from its proper aUment, 
it is seen and recognized in its true power and excel- 
lence ! 

Neither pagan philosophers, nor modern infidels, 
nor the philosophical world in Christian lands have 
been without their moral theories. When the Saviour 
of men descended from heaven, the Grecian and Ori- 
ental philosophy had obtained powerful influence over 
the thinking part of mankind ; — the former prevailing 
throughout Greece and Rome, the latter throughout 
Persia, Syria, Chaldea, and Egypt. "The Greeks 
sought after wisdom." And yet among them we 
find the sect of the Epicureans, who believed that the 
world arose from chance ; that the gods extended no 
care over human affairs ; that the soul was mortal ; 
that pleasure was the chief good ; and that virtue was 
to be prized only as it contributed to man's enjoyment. 
The Academical philosophy, from Plato down to the 
period when the Academic school was transferred to 
Rome, was professedly a system of doubt and scep- 
ticism. Its disciples denied the possibility of arriving 
at truth and certainty ; held it doubtful whether the 
gods existed, or did not exist ; whether the soul is 
mortal and survives the body ; and whether virtue is 
preferable to vice, or vice to virtue. The most pro- 
found, as well as the most ingenious of this sect yielded 
to the notion, that amid the endless varieties of human 
opinion, nothing could be decided. This evil v/as so 
deeply felt by Socrates, that he deemed it necessary 
that an instructor should be sent from heaven with 
special authority to reveal and enforce the duty of 
man. The Stoics held that man was bound to act 
according to his nature ; that nature impels him to 
pursue whatever appears to be a good ; that the great 



130 THE MORALITY OP THE BIBLE. 

object of pursuit is not pleasure, but conformity to 
nature, and that this is the origin of all moral Obliga- 
tion. The Oriental philosophy regarded matter as 
eternal, and as the source and origin of all evil and 
vice ; and that the material creation in its present form, 
and the race of man, derive their origin not ft-om the 
supreme God, but from some inferior being. The 
Persians asserted the existence of two eternal princi- 
ples, the one presiding over light, the other over mat- 
ter ; the one good, and the other evil.* The professed 
character of the gods of paganism was distinguished 
for crime, while the religion of those who worshipped 
them required them to be immoral. 

I hold it to be a truth capable of clear demonstra- 
tion, that no man is better than his principles. To be 
virtuous, he must possess virtuous principles. " As a 
man thinketh in his heart, so is he.^' As his princi- 
ples are, so is the man. There is an indissoluble con- 
nection between the nature of his moral conduct, and 
the principles from which they flow. Any thing may 
be called by any name, and any thing may appear 
imder any shape ; but never can it happen that of 
" thorns men gather figs, nor of a bramble bush gather 
they grapes." Men are governed in their outward 
deportment by their inward views and motives. It 
is so in politics, in literature, in science and the arts ; 
and it is so in morals and religion. And yet how 
often do we hear it asserted, that it is of little conse- 
quence what a man believes, if his heart is right ; that 
you must look at his character and not at his doctrine ; 
that good men are to be found in pagan, Mohamme- 
dan, and Christian lands, and of all creeds and pro- 
fessions ; that moral conduct is not the result of any 

* Murdock's Mosheim, Warburton's Divine Legation, and Cud- 
worth's Intellectual System. 



THE MORALITY OF THE BIBLE. 131 

set of opinions; and that it is of no consequence what 
a man's faith is, if he is only sincere ! But this is a 
delusive and destructive moraUty. If there be any 
truth in such a theory, moral principles are of no 
account whatever. One system of morals is as good 
as another, and those persons are just as likely to be 
virtuous who believe what is false, as those who 
believe what is true. But common sense instinctively 
revolts from such a doctrine, while all observation 
and experience evince its absurdity. Good conduct 
never grows out of corrupt principles, nor is evil con- 
duct the natural result of principles that are good. Is 
it so that a man may be one thing in his principles, 
and another in his morality ; one thing in his belief, 
and another in his character ? By what sort of phi- 
losophy is it that he is thus divided against himself; 
that he is thus torn asunder, and while one part of 
him is pronounced good, another is pronounced bad ? 
A man's principles are himself. His morahty is him- 
self. Suppose for a moment that the hypothesis on 
which we are animadverting should be realized. 
Here is a man who is one thing in his principles and 
another thing in his practice. He believes for exam- 
ple that the earth is a sphere, and yet he navigates it 
as though it were a plain. He believes that food is 
necessary to animal life, and yet he abstains from food. 
He believes that the hand of the diligent maketh rich, 
and yet he is a sluggard. He believes that fire will 
burn, and yet he plunges deliberately into the flames. 
He believes that Jehovah is the true God, and yet he 
worships the devil. You call him a madman ; and 
well you may ; but not more certainly than the man 
who believes there is no difference between what is 
right and what is wrong, and yet forms all his plans 
and conduct with a view to that difference j not 



132 THE MORALITY OP THE BIBLE. 

more certainly than the man who believes there is no 
God and no hereafter, and yet fears God and shapes 
his deportment with a view to an hereafter. His 
morality must take its rise from his principles. Moral 
principles constitute the seed, the germ of which moral 
character is but the development. 

Men are every where the subjects of moral law, and 
capable of moral actions. Their conduct as moral 
beings is good or evil, as it rests upon a true or false 
foundation, as it is determined by a true or false stan- 
dard, as it flows from right, or wrong motives. And 
hence it is, that pagan morality is so defective. 
Detached from the Bible, it has no other guide than 
the passions of men, and those few principles which 
may be suggested by the lights of reason and nature. 
It is no caricature of pagan morality to say, that it had 
no settled standard of right and wrong, and that we 
look in vain throughout all their philosophy for any 
well established principles of duty, or motives and 
aims that commend themselves to an enlightened con- 
science. What is the nature and foundation of virtue ; 
what is the rule of moral conduct ; what is the ulti- 
mate object toward which it should be directed ; in 
what does the duty and happiness of man consist ? 
are inquiries which never have been satisfactorily 
answered by the unassisted powers of the human 
mind. What the practical results of these uncertain 
speculations were, the annals of all pagan history show. 
Nor are they any where more comprehensively exhi- 
bited than in the following declarations of the great 
apostle, concerning the whole pagan world. " They 
became vain in their imaginations and their foolish 
heart was darkened. They were filled with all un- 
righteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, 
maliciousness, envy, murder, deceit, malignity. They 



THE MORALITY OF THE BIBLE. 133 

were backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, in- 
ventors of evil things, disobedient to parents, without 
natural affection, implacable and unmerciful.'^ Their 
manners and customs, where not dictated by the love 
of wickedness, seem to have been dictated by mere 
caprice and whim. What was virtue in one country, 
was vice in another ; and what was unpardonable 
rudeness in one, was refinement in another. Egypt 
was distinguished for great corruption of morals, as 
early as the time of Abraham and Joseph. Their 
public festivals were celebrated by practises so shame- 
ful, that they disgrace the page of the historian. If 
from Egypt you pass to Asia Minor, you see the 
prominent traits of moral character still the same, un- 
righteousness, malignity, luxury, effeminancy, and 
sensuality. If you look to Greece, in the early part 
of their history, you see brutal savageness in its most 
shameless forms ; while, in the age of greater refine- 
ment, iniquity only " put on an embroidered garb, and 
of more delicate texture." The Olympic, Pythian, 
and Isthmian games, while they imparted that strength 
of body and courage in battle, which were formerly 
the most enviable qualities which this nation knew, 
degraded and polluted their minds and morals to the 
lowest degree of debasement. Wherever indeed you 
read of the " heroic ages '' of ancient times, you may 
be assured they are fruitful in crime and horror, in 
parricide and incest, and all those melancholy and 
tragic catastrophes which present the most dismal and 
hideous picture of our race. The monarchs of Assyria 
passed the greater part of their lives in voluptuous- 
ness and debauchery. The proud Semiramis, notwith- 
standing all the commendations passed upon her 
heroism, led her subjects a career of unrestricted 
voluptuousness and debauchery. The most brilliant 



134 THE MORALITY OF THE BIBLE. 

ages of Babylon were most distinguished for dissolute- 
ness, and even the greatest refinement in debauchery. 
Gorged with riches, they tasked their ingenuity in the 
invention of all that could delight the senses, and 
alternately excite and gratify the basest passions. 
Here was that memorable temple in which every 
female was obliged by law, once in her life to prosti- 
tute herself to a stranger, for the purpose of augment- 
ing the public revenue. As a general fact, debauchery 
was not only allowed by the ancient pagans, but ap- 
proved by their religion. Even as cultivated a mind 
as that of Cicero, regarded it as no crime. Horace 
represents Cato as commending the young men who 
frequent the public houses of pollution, because they 
did nothing worse.* If such were the morals of the 
purest state of Rome, and of Cato, the severest censor 
of public manners, what must have been the most im- 
pure ? I will tell you what they were. The emperor 
Nero drove through the streets of his capital with his 
naked mistress ; and the emperor Commodus first dis- 
honoured and then murdered his own sister. " If these 
things were done in the green tree, what were done in 
the dry ?" Vice always descends from rulers to sub- 
jects. If such were the morals of emperors, what 
must have been the morals of the common people ? 
And what but such a depravation of morals is to be 
expected, where reason, blinded by appetite, is the 
only guide ; where conscience has no firm mooring, 
and the only impulse is the fitful breath of passion ? 
How could the doctrines of paganism excite to moral 
virtue ? It is perfectly obvious from the character of 

* " Macte 
Virtute esto, inquit sententia dia Catonis. 
Nam simul ac venas inflavit tetra libido 
Hue juvenes sequum est descendere, non alienas 
Permolere uxores." Sat. lib. I. it. 32. 



THE MORALITY OF THE BIBLE. 135 

their gods, and from their hopes of a voluptuous para- 
dise, that the whole system of the pagan world had 
not the least tendency to produce and cherish virtuous 
emotions. 

And how much better are the moral principles of 
modern infidels ? Lord Bolingbroke resolves all mo- 
rality into self love. And so does Volney. Hobbcs 
maintains that the sole foundation of right and wrong 
is the civil law. Rousseau says, " All the morality 
of our actions lies in the judgment we ourselves form 
of them." Lord Shaftesbury declares that "all the 
obligations to be virtuous arise from the advantages 
of virtue, and the disadvantages of vice." Hume 
affirms, that " moral, intellectual, and corporeal virtues 
are nearly of the same kind." Have such moral prin- 
ciples ever reformed the world ? Did they reform 
their authors ? Where will such principles lead, if 
carried out into practice ? What are their fruits ? 
What is there in an enlightened conscience that re- 
sponds to their pretensions ? 

And are there not some systems of ethical philo- 
sophy which are not found either among pagans or 
infidels, that are far below the spirit of the Bible? 
What is the morality, the foundation of which is 
simply what is useful and expedient ; the standard 
of which is the spirit and maxims of this world ; and 
the motives of which are purely mercenary and sel- 
fish ? Can that be called morality, which recognizes 
no immutable distinction between what is right and 
what is wrong ; which has no reference to the obli- 
gations of the divine law ; and is concerned only 
with our own interests ? Can that be called morality 
which asks, not what is right, but what is profitable ? 
which inquires not for duty, but for interest, for the 
opinions of men, for the spirit of the age ? Such a 

12 



156 THE MORALITY OF THE BIBLE. 

morality is most certainly radically defective. It is 
the morality of the world, not of the Bible. It is a 
mere external morality. It has no thorough lodgment, 
no permanent abode in the hidden chambers of the 
soul. It is a superficial observance. It is what all 
morality must be, separated from the truth of the 
Scriptures : a body without a soul ; a whited sepul- 
chre ; splendid only in sepulchral magnificence. 

The morality of the Bible is well and intelligibly 
defined. Its foundation, its standard, its motives are 
distinctly set before us, and ought not to be misunder- 
stood. Why then is any being in the universe under 
obligations to be morally virtuous ? Why is the 
divine Being bound to be holy, unless because holi- 
ness is right, and he is capable of perceiving it to be 
so ? And why are intelligent creatures bound to be 
morally virtuous, unless because they are so made as 
to be able to perceive, and feel under obligation to 
approve and practise moral virtue ? " Be ye holy, 
for I the Lord your God am holy." If the divine 
Being were malevolent, or selfish, would that circum- 
stance bind us to be so too ? The moral excellence 
of the divine character is a good and sufficient reason 
why men should be morally excellent. God requires 
them to be holy, because he is holy. The character 
that is right in God, is right in creatures. It is in its 
own nature just what it ought to be. The Deity 
would not be satisfied with himself without possessing 
such a character ; nor would virtuous and holy minds 
be satisfied with him, if he were not thus perfectly 
amiable and excellent. God is love ; God is truth ; 
God is rectitude ; God is mercy ; God is justice. 
There is a wide and immutable difference between 
such a character and the opposite. The former is 
right, and the latter is wrong. Nothing can reconcile 



THE MORALITY OP THE BIBLE. 137 

them. There is not, nor can there be any gradual 
approximation of them to one another. They are 
perfect opposites, and so will always remain. It 
would not be right for God to possess any other 
character than that which he does possess ; and no 
considerations of profit and loss, no considerations of 
the probable tendency of any other character, can 
ever induce him to change, or modify it ; nor were 
it possible to do so, except for the worse. The foun- 
dation of moral obhgation therefore lies in the immu- 
table difference between what is right and what is 
wrong, and in the capacity of intelligent beings to 
perceive that difference. I say in the capacity to 
perceive that difference ; for in a fallen creature 
especially, that difference may not always be per- 
ceived, while the obligation to perceive it remains 
unimpaired. When we look at our own natures, 
and the natures of our fellow men ; when we con- 
template the relations we sustain to them and they 
sustain to us ; unless our minds are blinded by 
wickedness, we cannot help perceiving that all the 
moral virtues are right. They grow out of our mutual 
relations, and not to practise them is wrong. And on 
this basis the Scriptures place our obhgations to moral 
virtue. 

It has been often asserted that utility is the founda- 
tion of moral obhgation. Utility to whom ? To me ? 
Then indeed is the securing of my own advantage 
the great end. And what sort of moral virtue is this ? 
Utility to the universe? Then let it be made to 
appear that throughout the vast empire of God no 
sinful thought or action was ever indispensable to the 
highest good. Nothing is more obvious from the 
Bible than that the reason why God requires moral 
virtue is, not because it is useful, but because it is 



138 THE MORALITY OF THE BIBLE. 

right. He is "of purer eyes than to behold iniquity 
and cannot look on sin." He could not be bribed to 
do this for all the universe, ten thousand times told. 
He requires the duties of morality because they are 
right, and in conformity with himself. He does not 
"do evil that good may come." He never lequires 
men to do what is wrong, even though he foresees in 
many instances, that their sinful conduct may be 
turned to the best account. It is utterly immoral to 
make utility the foundation of moral obligation, and 
to assign either the direct or indirect tendency of an 
action to promote happiness, as the reason why it 
ought to be performed. Moral virtue has a nature 
besides its tendency to happiness. Just as truth 
differs essentially and immutably from falsehood, 
just as light differs from darkness, and sweet from 
bitter, does good differ from evil. No law can 
confound them ; no beneficial tendency of the one, 
or of the other can alter their nature ; but like the 
nature of the Deity, they will remain forever the 
same. To make utility the foundation of moral 
virtue, seems to my mind to tear up all the foun- 
dations of moral virtue itself Virtue is no longer 
virtue, and vice is no longer vice, if this theory be 
true. If this theory were true, then, if in view of 
the divine mind, vice is expedient, it is no longer 
vice ; and if virtue is inexpedient, it is no longer 
virtue. And what wonder if men should abuse this 
reasoning, put themselves in the place of God, and 
decide that to be virtue which promotes their happi- 
ness, and that to be vice which promotes their 
misery ? There have been such moral philosophers 
and they are well described by the apostle as, " men 
of corrupt minds, supposing that gain is godliness." 
Such a morality were the most changeful and evanes- 



THE MORALITY OP THE BIBLE. 139 

cent thing in the world. No matter what its preten- 
sions, it is mere selfishness, and radically hostile to 
all moral virtue. If virtue is any thing, it is virtue 
everywhere and always ; and if vice is any thing, 
any thing but a name, it is vice always and every- 
where. The divine nature is unchanging. It is 
virtue, the highest virtue ; and nothing in the con- 
dition of this world, or other worlds ; nothing in the 
divine purposes or government ; nothing in time or 
eternity, can alter its nature. And this is one reason 
why, when the knowledge of God Avas lost in the 
world, there were no longer any just ideas of virtue 
and moral obligation. How is it possible there 
should be a sound morality where there is no know- 
ledge of God ? There is a chasm in morals which 
can be supplied only by a just acquaintance with the 
Deity. 

The Bible teaches us that the true and only standard 
of morality is the divine law. The rule, or standard 
of duty, is a different thing from the foundation of 
moral obligation. No being in the universe is so 
capable of judging of the nature of moral virtue, of 
the difference between what is right and what is wrong, 
in all the circumstances and relations of human exist- 
ence, and of what is, and what is not conformed to 
his own character, as God himself. No creature has 
the right to do this to any such extent as would make 
his own will, or judgment, or notions of any kind, the 
rule. The only standard to which all human conduct 
ought to be conformed, and conformity to which is 
rectitude, is the law of the great Supreme. If there 
be a God he must rule ; his will must be law. He 
has no superior ; no antecedent ; and there is no being 
of equal claims and rectitude. He only has a right to 
give law, and he only is able to give it in conformity 
12 * 



140 THE MORALITY OF THE BIBLE. 

to the eternal rule of his own perfect nature. We 
have perfect assurance that his law is like himself, 
and that he requires nothing but what is right, and 
forbids nothing but what is wrong. Because his own 
character is spotless and pure, he requires purity in 
others. Nothing but moral virtue is the object of his 
approbation and complacency, and therefore he can 
require nothing else. His Avill is the safe standard in 
kind, weight and measure. Whose will should be 
law, if not his in whom men live, and move, and have 
their being ; whose, if not the will of that great Law- 
giver, whose authority is uncontrolled and infinite ? 
How can we wonder at the fluctuating morality of 
the pagan nations, when they have no unfluctuating 
standard ? How can it be otherwise than that their 
ideas of moral virtue should be low and contracted, 
when even their very vices are prescribed as virtues ? 
If the previous remarks are just, it scarcely need be 
said, that the grand motive of a sound morality is a 
heartfelt respect for God as the rightful Lawgiver. It 
is a remark of the infidel Volney, that "there is no 
merit or crime in intention." Just the reverse of this, 
is the morality of the Bible. What it uniformly re- 
quires is virtuous conduct springing from right motives. 
It aims at the heart. It addresses its claims, not to 
the love of pleasure, nor the love of the world, nor the 
love of fame and power, but to an ingenuous regard 
for God. It is a sense of duty that governs, and of 
duty springing from love to God. It is a sense of right. 
Our selfishness may be never so wisely directed ; its 
calculations may be never so shrewd and politic ; but 
they can never rise to the elevation of holy love. Nay, 
" though I give all my goods to feed the poor, and my 
body to be burned, and have not love ; I am nothing." 
The morality and religion of the Bible are identified. 



THE MORALITY OF THE BIBLE. 141 

'' This is the love of God that we keep his command- 
ments.'' There is no love of God without keeping his 
commandments, and there is no keeping his command- 
ments without love to God. There is no religion 
without morality, and there is no morality without 
religion. In the language of a modern Scottish writer, 
" Morality is rehgion in practice ; religion is morality 
in principle."* The morality of the Bible springs 
from the predominant principle of holy love. And 
it is an all-governing principle ; fruitful, life-giving 
and powerful ; stronger even than the energetic prin- 
ciples of evil within us, and making the yoke of obe- 
dience easy, and its burden light. 

Such are the distinctions between the morality of 
the world and the morality of the Scriptures. The 
former has no foundation on which it can rest ; no 
unvarying standard, no high-born impulse. It may 
have instances of cautious abstinence, of ardent de- 
votement, of heroic magnanimity, but they will not 
bear the inspection of the omniscient eye, nor the 
analysis of eternal truth. Their elements are pride, 
vanity, and egotism. Actions whose fame has re- 
sounded through the world, achievements whose 
praise is recorded on the page of history, men whose 
proud name has been encircled with a halo of human 
glory from age to age, will all be found wanting 
when once weighed in the balances of eternal truth 
and rectitude. It is a remark of Foster, in his Essay 
upon the causes of the neglect of evangelical religion 
by men of taste, that " the moral philosophers seem 
anxious to avoid every thing that might subject them 
to the appellation of Christian divines. They regard 
their department as a science complete in itself; and 

* Wardlaw's Christian Ethics. 



142 THE MORALITY OF THE BIBLE. 

they investigate the foundations of morality, define its 
laws, and affix its sanctions, in a manner generally so 
distinct from Christianity, that the reader would 
almost conclude religion to be another science complete 
in itself. It is striking to observe how small a portion 
of the ideas which distinguish the New Testament 
from other books, many moral philosophers have 
thought indispensable to a theory, in which they pro- 
fessed to include the entire duty and interests of men. 
A serious reader is constrained to feel that there is 
either too much in that book, or too little in theirs." 
The justice and importance of these observations will 
occur to the mind of every one as he adverts to the 
treatises of Paley, Gisborne, Brown, Stewart, and 
Mcintosh. It should excite no great surprise in a 
Christian audience to be told that the science of morals 
is founded on the principles of divine revelation, and 
that the great principles of morality are inseparable 
from the word of God. Moral philosophy is the 
science which treats of the nature of human actions, 
of the motives and laws which govern them, and of 
the ends to which they ought to be directed. And 
surely such a philosophy is found in the Bible alone. 
For the heart to be right toward man, it must be right 
with God. Motives for the regulation of human 
conduct are suggested in abundance by men whose 
moral theories were never identified with the sacred 
volume ; but they have been addressed, if not to the 
worst, to some of the most unworthy passions of the 
human heart. But the morality founded on such a 
basis, and supported by such incentives, is devoid of 
principle. It knows no law but the opinions of men, 
and the ever fluctuating state of human society. It 
invests itself with different forms, as the character of 
the age, the state of the times, and the circumstances 



THE MORALITY OF THE BIBLE. 143 

of the individual require. It is one thing in Europe, 
and another in Asia ; one thing in the palace, and 
another in the mansions of the poor ; one thing amid 
the quietude and searching observation of a rural 
village, and another amid the bustle and concealment 
of a crowded city; one thing on the exchange, and 
another amid the retirement of private life ; one thing 
in the equable seasons of untempting prosperity, 
another amid the embarrassments and agitations of 
calamity and misfortune ; one thing in peace, and 
another in war; one thing at home, and another 
abroad. It is one thing to-day, and another thing 
to-morrow. It is unstable as water and variable as 
the wind. It is a temporizing, time-serving morality. 
It complies with the hour and the occasion. It hu- 
mours the current of opinion and circumstances. It is 
a system of moral obsequiousness, that is every where 
pliant and conciliating except to the claims of sterling 
integrity. 

But with what different views do we regard the 
morality of the Scriptures ! On every page of this 
sacred volume we see a system of ethics as pure, as 
lofty, as invariable as its divine Author. We meet 
with perpetual evidence of those great principles of 
unbending virtue, which, while they purify and regu- 
late the interior, also purify and regulate the exterior 
man; and which produce an equability of character, 
a "calm constancy ,^^ a tenderness of conscience, a 
kindness of spirit, as far removed from the moraUty 
and philanthropy of the world, as are the cold abstrac- 
tions of heathen philosophy from the sermon on the 
mount. The Bible settles the great question. What 
is duty ? It is every where familiar with that all-im- 
portant principle, that to do riglit, men must do what 
is right in itself, from right motives, and with a right 



144 THE MORALITY OP THE BIBLE. 

spirit. These two things God has joined together, and 
no man may put them asunder. It is not enough that 
a man's conscience is satisfied that he is doing right, 
unless he does it with a right spirit and from right 
motives. Nor is it enough that he acts from a right 
spirit and right motives, unless he does what is right 
in itself. He may not speak what is untrue, because 
he does it with benevolent intentions ; nor wreak a 
malignant revenge upon his enemy, because his con- 
science may be so blinded as to justify his malignity. 
Conscience may be so blinded as to lead a man sin- 
cerely to do what is abomination in the sight of God. 
The rectitude of his conduct may not depend on his 
sincerity. He may act from prejudice, selfishness, and 
malevolence ; and the time may come when, notwith- 
standing all the convictions of his conscience, like Saul 
of Tarsus, he may bewail the madness of his spirit, 
and see that he was altogether without excuse. His 
conscience may adopt false conclusions, conclusions in 
which light is resisted because he loves darkness; 
while in opposition to evidence he may persist in these 
conclusions, because a wrong spirit has paramount 
power. It is only when conscience is obeyed from a 
right spirit, that we have convincing evidence that 
our conduct is right in the sight of God. We may do 
many things that seem to be right, from a wrong 
spirit ; and we may do many things that are wrong, 
from a right spirit. The morality of the Bible teaches 
us that to do right, we must do so from a right spirit. 
Such a morality is the same thing every where. In 
every portion of it you see the divine original. What 
it is now, it always was, and always will be. The 
knowledge and love of God impart a simplicity, a 
symmetry, a beauty to the theory of morals which in- 
sinuate themselves into every part of the system, and 



THE MORALITY OF THE BIBLE. 145 

by a thousand imperceptible shades and impulses, 
adorn and control the whole. What beautiful simpli- 
city, what resistless energy, when contrasted with the 
heavy and complicated movements of an infidel, a 
pagan, or a pharisaic morality ! God requires it, this 
is the motive which sways the Christian moralist. 
You may descant upon the dignity of his nature, upon 
the beauty of virtue, the turpitude of vice, and the 
claims of a well regulated selfishness ; but how weak 
and unattractive are such considerations compared 
with the authority of that supreme Being whom he 
loves and adores ! 

Would you reform the manners of human society, 
you must aim at the heart ; you must diffuse through- 
out the mass the leaven of truth ; you must throw 
around the conscience the strong bonds of obligation, 
and draw the heart by the cords of love, as with the 
bands of a man. You must extend the empire of the 
great Lawgiver over the understanding, over the me- 
mory, over the imagination, over the warm and grate- 
ful affections, over the whole soul. This alone will 
suppress the germinations of crime, and check wicked- 
ness in its bud. This will impart the seeds of virtuous 
principle, which, in the maturity of their growth and 
expansion, will exemplify on the largest scale the great 
practical axiom, distinguished alike for its certainty 
and its perspicuity, " Make the tree good and its fruit 
good." 

The only specious objection to the morahty of the 
Bible is, that it is one of its leading doctrines that 
moral virtue avails nothing toward making an atone- 
ment for sin ; that no transgressor of the divine law 
can merit anything by his good works ; that his justifi- 
cation is entirely gratuitous and rests upon the 
righteousness of another ; and that in the whole matter 



146 THE MORALITY OP THE BIBLE. 

of his salvation, " it is not of him that willeth, nor of 
him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy." 
If this is so, of what avail, it is asked, are ah the moral 
virtues, and what encouragement have men to do the 
will of God ? We need only reply to this, that the 
foundation of man's acceptance and justification before 
God is one thing, and the character or moral condition 
in which he is justified is another. The foundation 
of his justification is the finished atonement, the obe- 
dience unto death, of God's eternal Son. The character, 
or moral condition in which he is justified is that of a 
repentant sinner, an humble believer in Jesus Christ. 
But what is the faith which is thus the condition of 
his acceptance ? Is it a cold assent to the truths of the 
gospel ? Or is it a warm, vivifying sentiment of the 
heart, working by love and putting all the powers of 
the soul into vigorous action in deeds of righteous- 
ness ? " What doth it profit, tho' a man say he have 
faith and have not works ?" Do the Scriptures re- 
cognize any such faith as this, even though a man may 
say he has it, and that it is the true faith ? " Can 
such a faith save him ?" Never. If it have not 
works, " it is dead, being alone." It is no faith. Works 
of righteousness are not only the natural fruits, but 
the inseparable attendants of all the faith that lives, 
and breathes, and throws its animating pulsations 
throughout his moral frame. So that the method of 
gratuitous justification by faith in the Son of God, in- 
stead of annihilating, confirms, instead of diminishing, 
augments, and instead of countervailing, gives a new 
impulse to, the primeval obligations and motives to 
moral virtue. " How shall we who are dead to sin, 
live any longer therein ?" Is this undermining the 
obligations to moral virtue ? " Ye have been bought 
with a price, and that not of silver and gold, but with 



THE MORALITY OF THE BIBLE. 147 

the precious blood of the Son of God, as of a lamb 
without blemish and without spot ; wherefore glorify 
God in your bodies and spirits, which are his.'^ Is 
this diminishing the motives to moral virtue ? " The 
love of Christ constraineth us, because we thus judge, 
that if one died for all, then were all dead; and that 
he died for all, that they which live should not hence- 
forth live unto themselves, but to him that died for 
them and rose again." Is this weakening the force 
of moral obhgation } " Do we make void the law 
through faith? Yea, we establish the law." "This 
do, and thou shall live," is to the transgressor an im- 
practicable condition. It is too late for a sinner to 
dream of being justified by deeds of law. But there 
is another law. " Beheve, and thou shalt be saved." 
Under the first covenant, obedience secures salvation ; 
under the second, salvation secures obedience. He 
" loves much, who has much forgiven ;" and he only 
obeys, who loves. 

If I urge upon you then, my young friends, the 
claims of morahty, it is the morahty of the Bible. It 
is not the morality of Seneca or Plato. Nor is it the 
morality of the young man who said, "All these have 
I kept from my youth up ;" but whose " heart was 
bound in fetters of gold." There is a morality 
that will never become the possessor of heavenly 
treasures. Nay, it were "easier for a camel to go 
through the eye of a needle," than for such a morality 
to enter into the kingdom of God. You must practi- 
cally acknowledge the God of heaven as your King, 
and love him with an undivided heart. You must 
take up your cross and follow your Saviour, or you 
are not worthy of him. True morality will lead you 
to love him above all others, and prefer his service 
above that of all otlier masters. Without this, it were 

13 



148 THE MORALITY OF THE BIBLE. 

vain to think of governing your life by his example 
and laws. A mere outward morality will serve you 
and your generation a little while ; it may even dimi- 
nish the aggravation of your guilt, and the weight of 
your sufferings in the future world. But it can avert 
neither ; and if this is all you have to plead in 
the presence of your Judge, it will " profit you 
nothing.'^ 



LECTURE VII. 

THE INFLUENCE OF THE BIBLE UPON THE SOCIAL 
INSTITUTIONS. 

By social institutions, I mean those which form the 
basis, or grow out of the various relations of human 
society. Man is a social being. His physical, intel- 
lectual, and moral constitution, have a manifest refer- 
ence to a state of social existence. Destitute of that 
strength which distinguishes many animals, unfur- 
nished by nature either with weapons to resist, or 
speed to escape from, their attacks, care for his safety 
alone would lead him to unite himself in close alli- 
ance with others of his species. The years of child- 
hood and old age are conditions in which he must 
of necessity depend upon others ; and in claiming 
during these periods of infirmity, sustenance and pro- 
tection from his fellow men, he must consent in the 
days of his own strength to anticipate and deserve 
them. Though well nigh the most helpless of all the 
animal creation, no longer a weak, isolated existence, 
he has been constituted the lord of this lower world. 
Instead of being the prey of ravenous beasts, he holds 
the brute creation in fear and servitude ; instead of 
being exposed to the tempest, his dwelling bids defi- 
ance to the winds ; and when the hunger, want, and 
149 



150 INFLUENCE UPON 

debility which he has succoured in others, become his 
own lot, his past services return to him at the hands 
of his fellows, though it be after many days. But not 
alone from his physical nature is he impelled to seek 
the society of his species. His moral and intellectual 
faculties determine him no less strongly to a social 
state, and pre-eminently fit him for it. Some of the 
noblest faculties of his soul, as well as some of the 
most amiable and exalted of his natural affections 
could be exercised only in such a condition. Benevo- 
lence, complacency, gratitude and heroism would all 
lie dormant, if he were an isolated being. Next to 
the pure fountains of spiritual joy, the most delightful 
sources of his enjoyment are those for the first time 
unlocked when he meets his fellow man. Isolated 
man can scarcely be said to have the capacity for 
lofty thought, or great achievement. The noble efforts 
of human power and genius, of which there are so 
many monuments in our world, have been made 
under the strong encouragement, the powerful incen- 
tive of society. Led by these impulses, and guided 
by the light of nature alone, man has no doubt 
made vast progress in the arts of social life. He has 
founded empires, builded cities, collected armies, and 
has framed laws for their government and guidance. 
Literature and the arts have flourished in a greater or 
less degree of splendour, and a beneficial, though 
imperfect code of morality has crowned the work of 
his mind and hands, and raised it to the highest eleva- 
tion which his own unaided powers have permitted. 

Still however the structure is incomplete. It rests 
on no sure foundation, and is also imperfectly cemented 
and fitted together. The elements of which it is 
compounded are of such conflicting qualities, that 
they can be brought into harmony and perfect union, 



SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS. 151 

only by the all-pervading influence of a pure system 
of morality, founded on pure religion. To be sensible 
of this, it is necessary to take a glance at the various 
relations of human life where no supernatural revela- 
tion has ever been made. And here permit me to 
remark, this is the only method of ascertaining the 
appropriate influence of a supernatural revelation 
upon the social institutions. What was the state of 
human society before the Bible was given to men ? 
What has been its condition since, and what is it now? 
There are evils in the social state ; but had they no 
existence before a supernatural revelation was known? 
In what condition did the Scriptures find the social 
institutions? In what condition are these institutions 
found at the present day, where the Bible has never 
been known, or heard of? Infidels have charged not 
a few of the social calamities in the world on the 
introduction of Christianity. But I cannot help think- 
ing, that if they did not feel an interest in rejecting 
the sacred Scriptures ; if these holy oracles did not so 
severely reprove their wickedness and rebuke their 
pride ; and if they were not either profoundly igno- 
rant, or obstinately perverse, they would never resort 
to so dishonourable and disingenuous a mode of reason- 
ing. The true questions in such a discussion are, has 
human society ever been well organized without the 
Bible ? — Have the social rights and obligations been 
any where understood and respected, where the Scrip- 
tures have had no existence ? — And where they have 
been best understood and respected, and their various 
relations have been peaceful and happy, has the Bible 
disturbed this organization, trampled on these rights 
and obligations, and rendered men contentious and 
miserable ? We are bold to say that an enlightened 
and honest answer to these inquiries will do honour to 
13 * 



152 mFLUENCE UPON 

the Bible. Where the Scriptures have found men 
without any social bonds, there they have laid the 
foundations and reared the superstructure of institu- 
tions that have endured for ages. Where they have 
found society loose and disjointed, and formed uffon 
principles that must ensure its overthrow ; there, as 
fast as they could exert their influence, have they, 
without fail, reduced this chaos to order and beauty. 
And where they have found it unrefined and impure, 
gross and cruel ; there have they, even in the most 
corrupted ages of Christianity, silently effected a change 
in the social relations which has gradually elevated 
the minds and habits of men to a visible and acknow- 
ledged superiority over all pagan lands. 

There seem to be two sources from which man 
might of himself arrive at a considerable degree of 
social culture and enjoyment. The first is from the 
invention of some system of religion, which, by 
superstitiously influencing his fears and his hopes, 
would restrain him from crime, and by its imposing 
ceremonies and dark mysteries, influence him to 
virtue. The second is by the careful cultivation of 
those intellectual faculties which God has given him, 
by the exercise of which his more base and degrading 
propensities may be subdued, and his intellectual 
and moral nature be improved and elevated. But to 
show how insufficient these are to produce the end in 
view, look at the two celebrated nations of antiquity, 
which have the most to boast of in these respects — 
Persia and Rome. The religion of the Persians was 
the purest of all uninspired religions, and the most 
calculated to elevate the soul. In the heavenly bodies, 
they worshipped their unknown author, and in the 
two presiding principles they sought an explanation 
of the mingling of good and evil upon the earth, that 



SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS. 153 

problem which has so long perplexed and confounded 
unenlightened reason. But their creed, however 
ingenious, could only exercise the intellect, and amuse 
the curiosity of its followers. It was destitute of all 
salutary influence upon their social relations. The 
history of Persia is a compendium of crimes, suffernig 
and intolerance. A despot ruled the state, and 
polygamy, that despotism in miniature, gave law to 
the private and domestic relations of the people. In 
all that philosophy and moral culture alone can do 
for the social institutions, ancient Rome stands pre- 
eminent among all nations. Their religion was indeed 
gross and puerile in the extreme, exercising an 
unhappy influence upon the lower orders, but dis- 
believed by the priests who taught it, and by the 
worshippers who in secret, ridiculed it. Yet so far 
as the most ingenious and sublime speculations of 
their sages could refine and improve them, they were 
favoured beyond example. Look then at their his- 
tory. In proportion as their philosophy improved, 
the integrity, the purity, the happiness of their social 
relations declined ; until the state became the legalized 
organ of oppression and cruelty, the marriage bond 
the pledge of encouraged licentiousness, the domestic 
circle the scene of terror, and that love of country for 
which Rome was distinguished in the best days of 
the early republic, was extinguished in the blood 
which flowed indiscriminately from her friends and 
her enemies. 

I have anticipated much that might be said in 
regard to the relation which exists between the state 
and its citizens, as these relations are developed in 
pagan and antichristian countries, in the lectures on 
the influence of the Bible on human laws and govern-" 
inent. If any man will examine the government of 



154 INFLUENCE UPON 

Rome from the institution of the regal government, 
to the expulsion of Tarquin ; from the consulship 
established by Brutus, to the magistracy of the mili- 
tary tribunes ; from the usurpation of Cinna, to the 
supreme power of Augustus; from the empire of 
Augustus, to that of Nero ; from Nero, to Valerian, 
and from Valerian to Constantine ; he will see dis- 
simulation, revolt, tumult, slaughter, revolution, des- 
potism, servitude, peace and war, and where the 
evils of peace were not unfrequently the worst cala- 
mities. Often was that fair land deluged with blood 
from the ambition of rivals to the throne. And then 
again, new schemes of mutual ambition would carry 
fire and sword to the remote and peaceful nations, 
till the flames of civil war raged in almost every part 
of the world. The resources of some great mind, 
increased and irritated by his calamities, possessing 
all the vices and none of the virtues of his species, 
would develope itself in all its hideousness, and wreak 
its vengeance in atrocities that cannot be thought of 
without horror. While, as often, elated with success, 
and dazzled with the pomp and consequence of sta- 
tion, it would again seek repose in brutal indulgence, 
or sanguinary persecutions. And how much better 
was ancient Greece, or Gaul, or Germany, or Britain ? 
How much better are the modern nations of paganism, 
where the power of Christian laws does not restrain 
their ferocity ? 

Just in the measure in which the influence of the 
Bible has been extended to the nations, have these 
evils been diminished, or entirely removed. " The 
Spirit of the Lord spake by me,'^ says the anointed 
king of Israel, "and his word was in my tongue. 
The God of Israel said, the Rock of Israel spake to 
me. He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in 



SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS. 155 

the fear of God : and he shall be as the light of the 
morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without 
clouds ; as the tender grass springing out of the earth 
by clear shining after rain.^' The relation existing 
between the state and its citizens, the Bible recog- 
nizes as of divine appointment. The foundation of 
civil government is the will of God. Life, liberty, 
and property, peace and order, public morals and 
religion, have never been left by the benevolent 
Author of our social existence, to chance, or anarchy, 
or the social compact. Government is an ordinance 
of heaven. " The powers that be, are ordained of 
God," not for their own honour and aggrandizement, 
but for the good of their subjects ; not to gratify the 
pride, minister to the lusts, and subserve the ambition 
of rulers, but for the tranquillity, virtue, and pros- 
perity of those they govern. Where, in pagan, and 
Mahometan lands, are rulers taught this important 
and salutary lesson from any such sources as make 
them feel its authority, or constrain them to respect 
the rights of the people ? Or where, except in lands 
illumined by the hght of super-natural revelation, do 
the people, on the one hand, know and feel that they 
have rights, and are themselves clothed with the 
authority to see that they are respected ; or on the 
other, know and feel that government is an institution 
of heaven ? Christian princes, it is true, have not 
always exerted the happy influence which the God 
of nations requires them to exert. Nor have Chris 
tian nations always respected their rulers, or asserted 
their own rights with firmness, and with the meekness 
of wisdom. But where have antichristian and pagan 
princes done it ? And where have pagan nations, in 
a single instance, been influenced by any other motive 
than the restive, factious determination to put dowu 



156 INFLUENCE UPON 

one despot for the sake of elevating another ? But 
look through Christian lands, and see how often the 
prerogative of the prince has been limited, and the 
rights of man asserted by a free and virtuous people. 
Witness the condition of England from the time of 
Alfred to the present hour. Witness the condition 
of France, though more often scourged by severe 
persecutions, from the reign of Clovis to the accession 
of Louis Philippe. Witness the triumph of Germany 
over Leo X. and the fifth Charles. And witness 
our own memorable Revolution. What had been 
the condition of this brave and high-minded people 
in those days of peril, but for the Bible ? And what 
had been our condition at many a fearful crisis of 
our public affairs, since that period, had these Ame- 
rican States not been restrained and governed by the 
spirit of that holy book ? Our obligations to the 
religion of the Bible, are not always, in this respect, 
duly appreciated. Why is it, that at every popular 
election, instead of some petty broil, we are not in- 
volved in oceans of blood ? It is because there is 
found, through the blessing of Almighty God, a mass 
of public virtue, a weight of moral principle ; virtue 
and principle founded on the word of God ; that 
subdues and restrains the "wrath of man.'^ Why 
is it, that with every calamitous and disastrous mea- 
sure of our government, we do not witness the scenes 
that were exhibited in Rome, under the reigns of 
Tiberius and Nero ? It is because we have been 
taught from the lips of the divine Saviour himself, to 
" render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and 
unto God the things that are God's.'^ It is because 
his holy apostles have given us the injunctions, 
"Let every soul be subject to the higher powers; 
submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the 



SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS. 157 

Lord's sake." It is because we have been taught 
to respect, and reverence, and pray for our rulers, 
" that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life, in all 
godliness and honesty ; knowing that this is good 
and acceptable hi the sight of God our Saviour." 
Such a spirit constitutes a virtuous community ; and 
with such a spirit no people can promote discord and 
revolution, until patience has had its perfect work, 
and the last limits of Christian forbearance have 
been far exceeded. Who does not see with how 
much more benevolence the Scriptures control the 
relation between the state and its citizens, than any 
other book, or any other set of opinions, or any other 
maxims, however high their authority, or however 
extensively received ? Who does not see that the 
crimes and sufferings so long attendant on the admi- 
nistration of human governments, would soon be 
unknown, and the contentions, revolutions and blood 
which have so long desolated the earth soon disappear, 
if the Scriptures were once duly honoured, and the 
voice of God regarded in preference to the seduc- 
tive influence of aspiring, designing, and corrupting 
men? 

The most important of all the social institutions is 
marriage, the primeval, parent-source of all the other 
relations. Nor is there any expression of the divine 
wisdom in determining the condition of the human 
race, more significant and delightful than this sacred 
institution. It is by this relation, that the world we 
inhabit is constituted a collection of famihes ; where 
the best natural affections are cherished, and the worst 
subdued ; where there is a community of affections 
and interests ; and where are the highest inducements 
to a reciprocal and virtuous influence, and especially 
in forming the character of the rising generation. The 



158 INFLUENCE UPON 

inhabitants of this earth are not brought into existence 
by a single act of creative power, such as gave exist- 
ence to the angehc creation. These unfallen existences, 
with all their shining hosts, and in all the variety of 
their rank and excellence, were formed at once, and 
with no successive dependence of one generation upon 
that which preceded it. Nor has there probably been 
any increase, or diminution in their numbers, since 
that early dawn of the creation, when these " morning 
stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted 
for joy." And such will be the relation of the " spirits 
of just men made perfect," after the resurrection. 
" They neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but 
are as the angels of God, in heaven." The race of 
man, on the other hand, is perpetually increasing, and 
the current of human existences flowing on, augment- 
ed by almost innumerable tributary streams to the 
end of time. It required more than finite wisdom so 
to arrange this perpetually augmenting population, as 
most effectually to consult its social interests, its ho- 
nourable, virtuous character, its immortal destiny. 
And who does not see with what admirable efficiency 
these ends may be secured, and secured only by the 
nuptial bond ? To test the verity and importance of 
this remark, let us bestow a few considerations on the 
methods by which human society may be supposed 
to be organized and continued. 

The first is by a promiscuous intercourse of the 
sexes, unrestrained by any law, and uncontrolled ex- 
cept by the consent of the parties. Such has been 
the usage of a few barbarous lands ; such is the doc- 
trine of Robert Dale Owen and other modern reformers ; 
and such are the habits of a few gregarious, anomalous 
communities, even in Christian countries at the pre- 
sent day. From the cradle, the sexes are taught that 



SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS. 159 

there is no barrier even in thought against the most 
universal indulgence. And what shall be said of such 
a society, but that it is polluted and poisoned at its 
fountain head, and a hideous mass of corruption and 
rotteness ? There is no moral safeguard in such a 
community to protect it against the most disastrous 
and desolating evils that can be commissioned to 
scourge its degraded and guilty inhabitants. Marriage 
is a term of reproach ; the parental relation is un- 
known ; and the unhappy offspring of such a concu- 
binage are thrown out upon the world with no re- 
straints of parental love and wisdom, and no obligations 
of filial affection and reverence ; monsters in crime, 
giants in iniquity, and in a little while, the fit objects 
of such sweeping judgments as desolated the old world 
by the waters of the deluge, and the cities of the plain 
by a tempest of fire out of heaven. 

Look then for a moment at the system of polygamy, 
under which a man has a plurality of wives. This 
evil was indeed tolerated among the ancient patri- 
archs and Hebrews. But it was a perversion of the 
original institution of marriage. " Moses suffered it 
for the hardness of their hearts ; but from the begin- 
ning, it was not so.'' All the evils of that early and 
idolatrous age of the world could not be remedied in 
a moment. And such was the state of society, that 
not even until the advent of the Saviour was the in- 
stitution of marriage restored to its primeval integrity 
by revoking the permission of polygamy and divorce. 
Experience has abundantly and painfully proved that 
polygamy debases and brutalizes both the body and 
the mind, and renders society incapable of those ge- 
nerous and refined affections, which, if duly cultivated 
would be found to be the inheritance even of our 
fallen nature. Where is an instance in which poly- 

14 



160 INFLUENCE UPON 

gamy has not been the source of many and bitter 
calamities in the domestic circle and to the state ? 
Where has it reared a virtuous, heaven-taught pro- 
geny ? Where has it been distinguished for any of 
the moral virtues ; or rather, where has it not been dis- 
tinguished for the most fearful degeneracy of manners ? 
Where has it even been found friendly to population ? 
It has been reckoned that the number of male infants 
exceeds that of females, in the proportion of nineteen 
to eighteen, the excess of the males scarcely provid- 
ing for their greater consumption by war, seafaring, 
and other dangerous and unhealthy occupations. It 
seems to have been the " order of nature that one 
woman should be assigned to one man/' And where 
has polygamy ever been friendly to the physical, and 
intellectual character of the population ? The Turks 
are polygamists ; and so are the Asiatics ; but how in- 
ferior a people to the ancient Greeks and Romans ! I 
spoke of the domestic circle of the communities under 
the influence of polygamy ; but is there any thing 
worthy of the name in such countries ? Let the uni- 
versal seclusion of females from the eye of man, and 
the unsleeping jealousy of their husbands furnish the 
answer. What is the domestic circle, or the society 
of friends, where the presence and all subduing in- 
fluence of woman, its brightest ornament and glory, is 
banished ? 

" Hail, woman, hail ! last formed in Eden's bowers, 
Midst humming streams and fragrant breathing flowers, 
Thou art, 'mid light and gloom, through good and ill, 
Creator's glory, man's chief blessing still. 
Thou calm'st our thoughts, as halcyons calm the sea, 
Sooth'st in distress, when servile minions flee; 
And O without thy sun-bright smiles below. 
Life were a night, and earth a waste of wo." 

I am not extensively acquainted with the domestic 



SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS. 161 

condition either of Turkey, or Persia, nor have I been 
able to find access to those sources of informatiou 
which I have desired ; but if the few historical notices 
of some of the royal families of these countries, which 
have met my eye, are a faithful index to the evils of 
polygamy, it is among the most fruitful sources of 
misery and crime. What can be expected from a 
system, where woman fades at tv/enty, is decayed 
at thirty, and before five and thirty sinks to her grave? 
Look now at that modification and combination of 
the two preceding systems which is found in those 
countries where the nuptial relation is only temporary, 
and where, while the promiscuous intercourse of the 
sexes and a plurality of wives are interdicted, the fre- 
quency of divorces opens the door to the most un- 
bridled licentiousness. In ancient Rome, the matri- 
monial institution was regarded as a mere civil con- 
tract, established for purposes of convenience and 
expediency, protected during its continuance by the 
civil magistrate because it was deemed a blessing to 
society, and by the law of the Twelve Tables, con- 
tinued only during the pleasure of the husband. The 
sober and well attested fact in relation to this arrange- 
ment is, that in all those countries where polygamy 
was not tolerated, the frequent and rapid succession 
of divorces and marriages took the place of polygamy 
and introduced all its evils. Especially was this the 
case in Rome. A glance at the history of that nation 
will render us sensible of this. Such was the facility 
of obtaining divorces among the Romans, that the 
nuptial tie offered not the slightest resistance to mo- 
tives of ambition, avarice, or irregular passion. The 
private history of women of the first rank is but a suc- 
cession of marriages and divorces ; each new marriage 
yielding to one more recent, with the same readiness 



162 INFLUENCE UPON 

with which itself had displaced a former union. 
Perhaps it may be thought out of place to enumerate 
examples of this nature ; and yet nothing else can give 
us a just conception of the extent of the evil. Octavia, 
the daughter of the emperor Claudius, married Nero, 
and was repudiated by him for the sake of Poppsea. 
Poppgea herself was first married to Rufus Crispinus ; 
then to Otho ; and at length to Nero, by whom she 
was killed by a violent blow and at a period when the 
trials of her sex should have been her protection. For 
his third wife, Nero married Messalina, and to possess 
her person, murdered her husband. Julia, the daugh- 
ter of Augustus, was married first to Marcellus, then 
to Agrippa, and then to Tiberius. Livia Orestilla 
was on the eve of a marriage with Caius Piso, when 
Caligula, enamoured of her beauty, carried her off by 
force, and in a few days after, repudiated her. Marc 
Antony, who was married to Octavia, the sister of 
Augustus, repudiated Octavia, because he was in love 
with Cleopatra. Sach examples you will find almost 
endlessly diversified in the Annals of Tacitus. The 
extent to which this licence was carried may be also 
learned from the poet Martial, who tells us that when 
the Julian law against adultery was revived as a pre- 
ventive to the corruption of the age, within thirty 
days Messahna married her tenth husband, thus legally 
evading those restraints which the laws had imposed 
upon her licentiousness. What is the marriage bond 
worth in such a state of society ? And where is the 
state of society essentially better than this without the 
Bible ? It can hardly be said there is any such thing 
as social institutions where the nuptial vow is the 
sport of every caprice and passion, and where it is 
violated without penalty, and even without remorse 
and shame. 



SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS. 163 

And now let us turn, as from a dry and parched 
desert to a fruitful land, from this disgusting survey, 
and see in how different a light the Bible considers 
the matrimonial relation from that in which it is 
viewed by pagan and Mahometan lands, and by unbe- 
lievers in divine revelation in lands that are Christian. 
This sacred Book regards it as a religious institution ; 
as owing its origin, not to earth, but to heaven, not 
to the light of nature, but to a divine command ; as 
an institution established by the Creator himself im- 
mediately after the formation of man, and subsequently 
put under the protection of his law. It inscribes in 
deep legible characters on every nuptial altar, " What 
God hath joined together, let not man put asunder !" 
It explicitly defines marriage to be the act of uniting 
two persons in wedlock, and only two. *' For this 
cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and 
cleave unto his wife, and they twain shall be one 
flesh." The degrees of consanguinity within which 
this union is lawful are not left to the judgment of 
fallible men, but in the institutions of the inspired 
legislator of the Hebrews, are marked with perfect 
definiteness. And when once formed, the Bible pro- 
nounces this connection a perpetual union, and to be 
dissolved only by crime, or death. " The woman 
that hath an husband, is bound by the law to her hus- 
band, so long as he liveth ; but if her husband be dead, 
she is loosed from the law of her husband." And 
with what tenderness does it prescribe the reciprocal 
duties of this relation ! " Husbands love your wives," 
— not according to the maxims of a cold and changing 
philosophy ; not after the fashion of this world, — but 
" as Christ loved the Church. Wives submit your- 
selves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord ; 
for the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ 
14 * 



164 INFLUENCE UPON 

is the Head of the Church." Who that has seen heed- 
less and frequent infringements upon these precepts, 
has not seen the wisdom of them in the disastrous 
consequences of their own folly ; not merely upon 
the peace, and harmony, and mutual confidence that 
ought always to distinguish this happy relaiion ; not 
merely upon their own respectabihty and influence in 
the Church and in the world, but upon the character 
and conduct of their children ? Rarely can you find 
affectionate children, where there is an unkind hus- 
band ; or dutiful children, where there is an undutiful 
wife. And how solemnly do the Scriptures protect 
the sanctity of the marriage vow ! God required 
that the adulterer and adulteress should be punished 
with death. He affirms before the world, " Whore- 
mongers and adulterers, God will judge." With an 
emphasis never to be forgotten, he demands, " Know 
ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the 
Spirit of God dwelleth in you ? If any man defile the 
temple of God, him shall God destroy." Nothing 
but the Bible can set bounds to human licentiousness. 
There is a place of which the unerring voice of inspi- 
ration has said, " He knoweth not that the dead are 
there, and that her guests are in the depths of hell." 
There is a character of which the same unerring voice 
declares, " None that go unto her return again, neither 
take they hold of the paths of life." There is a sin 
of which this book of God often speaks, but on which 
it rarely expatiates ; a sin which the pure and holy 
Author of the Bible does no more than significantly 
indicate with the one hand, while with the other he 
opens to its obdurate and grovelling perpetrator the 
doors of the eternal prison, and points to the " lake 
which burns with fire." 

In speaking of the social institutions, we may not 



SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS. 165 

forget how much the Bible has done for woman. The 
condition of woman was more exalted in Rome than 
it ever has been to my knowledge in any land where 
the day spring from on high has not visited her. The 
nations of the east have kept her in a state of igno- 
rance and slavery. Among the Greeks, she occupied 
a very inferior sphere : so that if she was restrained 
from evil, she was helpless to do good. While the 
laws of Rome, on the other hand, allowed her greater 
Uberty and consideration than she had heretofore 
enjoyed, still was the sex without those restraints of 
morality and purity which alone can preserve her 
from degradation. No happy influence did she exert 
upon the public, or private welfare of the state. Her 
influence ascended to ambition ; politicians intrigued 
with her ; and her liberty degenerated into licentious- 
ness. The former deluged the streets of the capital 
with its best blood ; and to such an extent was the 
latter carried, that among the several decrees which 
passed the senate under the reign of Tiberius, against 
the licentiousness of female manners, it was ordained 
^^ that no woman whose grandfather, or father, or 
husband was a Roman knight, should be allowed to 
make her person venal !" The laws of a nation are 
a faithful and instructive history of its manners. And 
what must have been the corruption of female man- 
ners in Rome, when such a law was necesscrry to sup- 
press female licentiousness in the highest ranks of 
society ? If such was the character of a Roman 
baronness, what must have been that of the subordi- 
nate classes ? There can scarcely be a more degrading 
view of woman than this, unless it be the condition 
which she now presents in pagan lands. And what 
is that condition now, in the nineteenth century of 
the Christian era? Hated and despised from her 



166 INFLUENCE UPON 

birth, and her birth itself esteemed a calamity ; in 
some countries not even allowed the rank of a moral 
and responsible agent ; so tenderly alive to her own 
degradation, that she acquiesces in the murder of her 
female offspring ; immured from infancy ; without 
education ; married without her consent ; in a multi- 
tude of instances, sold by her parents ; refused the 
confidence of her husband, and banished from his 
table ; on her husband's death, doomed to the funeral 
pile, or to contempt that renders life a burden : — such 
is her degraded and pitiable condition, in almost all 
except Christian lands. The Bible has an appropriate 
place for woman, a place for which she is fitted and 
in which she shines. It elevates her, but assigns her 
her proper sphere. It does indeed exclude her from 
the corruption of the camp and the debates of the 
forum. It does not invite her to the professor's chair, 
nor conduct her to the bar, nor make her welcome to 
the pulpit, nor admit her to the place of magistracy. 
It bids her beware how she overleaps the delicacy of 
her sex, and listens to the doctrines of effeminate de- 
baters, or becomes the dupe of modern reformers and 
fashionable journalists. It asks not to hear her gen- 
tle voice in the popular assembly, and even suffers 
her not to speak in the church of God. It claims 
not for her the right of suffrage, nor any immunity by 
which she may " usurp authority over the man." 
And yet it gives her her throne ; for she is the queen 
of the domestic circle. She reigns in the bosom of her 
family; in the heart of her husband and children. Hers 
is the supremacy of all that interesting domain, where 
love, and tenderness,and refinement of thoughtand feel- 
ing preside. Hers is the privilege of making her hus- 
band happy and honoured, and her sons and her daugh- 
ters the ornaments of human society. Hers is the sphere 



SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS. 167 

of piety, prudence, diligence in the domestic station, and 
a holy and devout Ufe. Hers is the sphere that was 
occupied by Hannah, the mother of Samuel; by 
Elizabeth, the mother of John ; and by Mary, the 
mother of Jesus. Hers is " the ornament of a meek and 
quiet spirit, which, in the sight of God, is of great 
price." Hers is the respect and esteem of mankind. 
Hers is that silent, unobserved, unobtrusive influence by 
which she accomplishes more for her race than many 
whose names occupy a broad space on the page of 
history. More than this, too, does the Bible do for 
woman. It opens to her the stores of knowledge. It 
proscribes her no intellectual advancement. It com- 
mits to her intelUgent culture the minds of the rising 
generation. It tells her that her peculiar province is 
to embellish and adorn. It opens before her the 
loveliest spheres of active benevolence. And while it 
tells her to be a " keeper at home," it at the same 
time points her to the poor, the afflicted, the widow, 
the orphan, the sick, and the dying, and says, " Pare 
religion, and undefiled before God and the Father, is 
to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, 
and to keep herself unspotted from the world." It 
does more for her than for the stronger sex, because 
it gives her more piety than it gives to pious men ; 
more ardency and devotion in her religious affections ; 
more numerous, as well as more illustrious examples 
of converting grace ; a greater reward, and a brighter 
crown. Nor can she ever know what she owes to the 
Bible, until she is presented by her great Lord and 
Husband, faultless before the throne. 

But let us turn a moment to another of the social 
relations : I mean that which exists between parents 
and children. I have often wondered why there are 
so few scenes of domestic joy painted in pagan his- 



168 INFLUENCE UPON 

tory ; and whence it is that we never find access to 
the bosom of a well regulated and happy family in 
pagan lands. May not the reason be that the mate- 
rials for the picture never existed ? Pagan historians 
there were, of a high standard of excellence ; and 
pagan poets, whose classical sublimity and beauty it 
would be treason to the cause of a polished and 
elegant literature to question. But their themes are 
conflict and revolution ; deified heroes and heroines ; 
a base and corrupting mythology ; the beauties and 
tranquillity of pastoral life ; or the passion of a shep- 
herd for some beautiful boy. Though many of the 
pagan poets maintain the first rank of excellence, and 
abound with imagery that might naturally have 
found culture and aliment amid the more virtuous 
and lovely scenes of domestic joy, yet do these scenes 
seem, even to their polished minds, to be almost 
interdicted themes. Before the introduction of Chris- 
tianity, there was a strong tendency to sacrifice the 
domestic to a more public life. The citizen of Rome 
and Athens was distinguished, not for his domestic 
virtues, but for his literary attainments and his public 
valour. He employed his life in the field, in the 
academy, or in the forum, but found little to interest 
him at home. He lived abroad amid the almring 
examples of a licentious world ; he threw himself into 
the current of its seductive temptations ; but rarely 
found interest and happiness in the society of his 
children. Home was a word dissevered from all 
those high and holy associations, inseparable from it 
in a Christian family. He was known rather as a 
citizen, than as a father, a son, a friend. He had 
indeed his household gods, his altar and his fireside ; 
but he had no voice of supplication and praise — no 
bond of God's eternal covenant sealing blessing to 



I 



SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS. 169 

him and to his for a great while to come. In ancient 
Rome, under the emperors, it was even considered an 
advantage to be without children ; and fathers often 
renounced them for the estimation and flattery which 
were showered upon them by those who might be 
expectants of their inheritance. More than once has 
an affluent citizen proved too powerful for his accusers, 
simply because he was childless. And it was no 
strange occurrence for children as frequently to 
become the accusers, as the advocates of a father, 
and as ready to destroy, as to protect him against his 
enemies. A father pleading for his life, while his son 
stands forth his accuser : what a scene were this in 
Christian lands ! Nero poisoned his mother ; and 
Seneca, one of the wisest and best of the heathen 
philosophers, was accessory to the base transaction. 
Where in all the annals of Christendom, is registered 
so foul a deed ? Men never sin so obstinately, as 
when they sin from principle. And even at the 
present day, it is deemed a religious duty in pagan 
lands, for parents to destroy their children ; and, as 
though God had with awful severity inflicted the 
law of retaliation in return, for children to destroy their 
parents. 

But see how the Scriptures speak of this relation. 
Mark how they honour and protect it, and how they 
define and enforce its corresponding rights and duties. 
To the parent they say, '^ Train up a child in the way 
he should go, and when he is old he will not depart 
from it." To the child they say, " Honour thy father 
and thy mother, that thy days may be long in the 
land which the Lord thy God giveth thee." To the 
parent they say, " And ye fathers provoke not your 
children to wrath, lest they be discouraged." To the 
child they say, and in language never to be forgotten, 



170 INFLUENCE UPON 

" The eye that mocketh at his father, and refuseth to 
obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick 
it out, and the young eagles shall eat it." Under the 
Mosaic law, the man that cursed his parent was 
surely to he put to death ; the men of his city 
" should stone him with stones, that he die." The 
whole scope and spirit of the Bible consider the 
appropriate performance of the relative duties which 
result from the relation of parent and child as laying 
the foundation of every private and public virtue. 
They recoil from the arbitrary power and cruel 
tyranny of a parent, and from the hardened impiety 
and obstinate stubbornness of a child. The Spartans 
venerated age ; but how much more energetic and 
authoritative is the language of the Jewish lawgiver 
when he says, " Thou shalt rise up before the face 
of the hoary head, and honour the face of the old 
man, and fear thy God." Have my youthful readers 
been instructed by example, by precept, by unsleeping 
vigilance and unwearied effort, and by a discipline 
equitable and kind, in habits of virtue ; have their 
minds been enlightened and their wants supplied ; 
and are they conscious that it has been the united aim 
of their parents by their self-denial, their counsels and 
prayers to render them religious, useful and happy ; 
permit me to remind them, they owe this distinction 
to the Bible. And where is the parent who is sur- 
rounded with the tokens of filial piety, and whose 
heart has been habitually comforted by all that is 
tender and grateful in the affections, and respectful 
and dutiful in the deportment of his children, but 
feels that for all this he is indebted to the same divine 
source ? There is a beautiful incident in the hfe of 
Christ, which illustrates the influence of the gospel 
upon domestic life. It was among those last subhme 



SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS. 171 

and tender exhibitions of his nature which took place 
upon the cross. Forgiveness, love, and resignation 
had already beamed divinely through the horrors of 
that scene, and attracted the eye of the believer to a 
picture where otherwise all was so sad and revolting. 
The Saviour was in his bitterest agony. The guilt 
of during men was weighing upon his soul ; interests 
incalculably vast were absorbing his attention, and 
he might well be supposed to have lost sight of those 
by whom he was surrounded. In such an hour, and 
amid the depths of his own sorrow, who would 
wonder had he overlooked the claims of earthly 
kindred? But at a httle distance stood his mother. 
Near her, he beheld the youngest and best beloved 
of his disciples. Those earthly ties were about to 
be sundered, and he would not leave her without a 
support to her advancing years, nor the young dis- 
ciple without a guide for his inexperienced youth. 
"Woman," said he to the first, "behold thy son!" 
To the latter, " Son, behold thy mother ! And 
from that hour, that disciple took her to his own 
home." 

The history of pagan nations is an instructive study, 
though it is little else than a narrative of crime. 
It teaches us how helpless man is to guide himself in 
the path of virtue and happiness by his own unaided 
powers. It teaches us how much we are indebted 
to the Bible ; how much of our social advantages 
we owe to its pure spirit which has breathed over 
the chaos of nations, and brought order, light, beauty 
and fruitfiilness from the shapeless void. It teaches 
us to be thankful that " the lines are fallen to us in 
pleasant places," where the endeared names of hus- 
band, wife, parent, child, speak with a tenderness to 
our hearts which we carmot appreciate, unless we 

15 



172 INFLUENCE UPON 

have traced in the history of the past, how little these 
ties have been valued. No author sets this in a 
stronger hght, than Tacitus in his Annals of the 
Roman Empire. The hand of that masterly historian 
must have trembled as he delineated the picture. 
There you will find a narrative of all that can shock 
the tenderest sensibilities of our nature ; all that man 
can perpetrate in crime ; all that the arch enemy can 
bring up from his dark kingdom to disturb and ruin. 
Suspicion, massacre, and licentiousness ; the con- 
spiracy of wives against their husbands, and husbands 
against their wives ; men everywhere falling upon 
their own sword ; families whose peace is disturbed 
by violence and ruined by intrigue ; children sacri- 
ficed by the machinations of a mother ; the wife 
murdering her husband for the purpose of wedding 
her paramour; women "practised in the trade of 
poisoning;" this is paganism and in the most en- 
lightened age of Rome. But it is not Christianity. 
Let a man compare the present state of society in 
Protestant countries with the state of society under 
the dynasty of the Csesars, and he cannot fail to see 
what the Bible has done for the social institutions. 
Let him go into the interior of the first and most 
polished families in Rome, and he will bless God for 
a supernatural revelation. Let him mark the differ- 
ence with which the social relations are regarded by 
the wisest and most virtuous of pagan moralists, and 
a well instructed Christian teacher ; let him see how 
in Christian lands, they bear the test of experience, 
and endure the proof of trials ; how the spirit that 
sustains them grows cold only in death, and is extin- 
guished only in the grave ; and then let him go into 
lands unenlightened by the gospel, and observe how 
the sweetest charities of life are destroyed by the 



SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS. 173 

suspicions of envy, the jealousies of love, the violence 
of ambition, the thirst for power, and at best decay- 
when the flower of beauty and the graces of youth 
are gone ; and he will adore the Father of mercies 
for that blessed Book " more to be desired than gold, 
yea than much fine gold." 

And yet are there those who would have us believe 
that the religion of the Bible is a morose and unsocial 
religion. If to have no sympathy with wickedness is 
to be unsocial, then is it an unsocial religion ; but if 
to promote all that is kind and virtuous, and pure and 
true, if to take pleasure in all that subdues what is 
malignant and ferocious, what is ambitious and cruel, 
if to sympathize with all that elevates and transforms 
the human character and makes it the ornament of 
human society here, and the glory of angelic society 
hereafter, be social ; then is it truly and in the highest 
degree friendly to social institutions. There cannot 
be a more gross misconception than that the religion 
of the Scriptures is an unsocial religion. Every where 
it inculcates the gentle and kind affections. If there 
be softness, sweetness, cheerfulness and honour in the 
intercourse between man and man, to Avhat are they 
to be attributed, if not to the power of that heaven- 
born "charity, which suffereth long and is kind, 
which envieth not, which vaunteth not itself, and is 
not puffed up ;" which " doth not behave itself un- 
seemly, and seeketh not her own ;" which " beareth 
all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things ;'' 
without which we " are become as sounding brass, or 
a tinkling cymbal !" We see not how an unsocial 
spirit can spring from such a source. And yet so it is 
that the Bible is made to answer for all the morose- 
ness and severity in the world, when it is known to 
enjoin all that is benevolent and cheerful in the social 



174 INFLUENCE UPON SOCIAL INSTITUTIONS. 

affections. Let every Christian man therefore bear in 
mind, that the Bible, with wonderful wisdom, adjusts 
its claims to the relations which men sustain to time 
as well as to eternity ; to this world, as well as the 
world to come ; and that it is one of the distinguished 
glories of its religion, that while it lives above the 
world, and walks with God, instead of retiring from 
earth and renouncing the intercourse of social life, it 
carries its disciples into the midst of human society to 
purif}^, reform, and elevate it, and there " let their light 
so shine before men, that they seeing their good 
works, may glorify their Father which is in heaven." 



LECTURE VIII. 

THE INFLUENCE OF THE BIBLE UPON SLAVERY. 

While treating of the influence of the Bible upon the 
Social Institutions, there is one subject we cannot 
pass over in silence, notwithstanding the difficulties 
attending it. I allude to the relation existing between 
master and slave. The difficulties are intrinsic, 
growing out of the subject itself, as well as the enter- 
prise and character of the age. At the present day, 
and in the present condition of our country, it is a 
subject of great importance ; and it becomes every one 
in forming his judgment concerning it, to turn to that 
sacred book in which we profess to find a guide and 
instructor, and submit his opinions to the unerring 
decisions of the oracles of God. I do not know that I 
have any personal interest in giving a perverted, or 
partial view of this vexed question. Indeed I find it 
no easy matter to take such a view of it, as satisfies 
my own mind. The Bible is the fountain from which 
we are to draw, not only our rehgious doctrines, but 
our rules of duty. " I have always observed," said 
an able and wise divine, " that when people become 
better than the Bible, they are very apt to be wrong.'^ 
We certainly cannot depend upon the reasonings of 
men, however plausible their arguments, as we may 
15* 175 



176 INFLUENCE UPON 

depend upon the decisions of God. All onr notions 
of property, all our abstract reasonings upon the rights 
of man and his natural freedom and equality, all our 
principles of moral science and in all their varied 
applications, must be ultimately brought to the infalli- 
ble standard revealed from heaven. God is om teacher. 
It is not for man to sit in judgment upon any of the 
truths which he has made known. " God never left 
his works for man to mend." His wisdom is unerring ; 
nor is there any greater presumption than for us to 
refuse to make the Bible the standard of our duty, and 
be satisfied with that standard. Have we a written 
communication from heaven, whose Author is a being 
of universal charity, boundless knowledge, and eternal 
truth ? Then from this source, and this source alone, 
are we bound to derive our opinions and our instruc- 
tions on every subject on which it addresses us. Not 
more truly "would an infidel be labouring in his 
vocation" in charging errors upon the inspired penmen 
of this sacred book, than in relying upon his own 
reason as the ultimate standard of moral duty, and in 
taking upon himself to teach the inspired writers, 
rather than suflfer them to teach him. It is an unhap- 
piness that the public mind is in such a state of febrile 
excitement in relation to slavery, that is is difficult to 
speak the whole truth in relation to this subject with- 
out giving offence. But we may not forget, that this 
state of feeling has nothing to do with our application 
of the great principles of moral duty as revealed from 
heaven. It decides nothing ; is variable and fluctu- 
ating; while truth and duty, as God has revealed 
them, remain the same. 

Slavery has been defined by Dr. Paley, to be " the 
obhgation to labour for the benefit of the master, 
without the contract, or consent of the servant." 



SLAVERY. 177 

This relation has existed in a great variety of forms, 
and degrees of severity. Very often it has been a 
condition marked by injustice and cruelty, attended 
with no adequate remuneration for labour, great civil 
disabilities and personal suffering, great domestic 
wrongs, and great intellectual and moral degradation. 
And there are instances, as facts show, in which it 
has existed unaccompanied by any of these evils. 
These are evils that have been wickedly superinduced 
by the cruelty and cupidity of men, rather than evils 
which necessarily and essentially belong to the relation 
itself. 

Long before the Bible was given to the world, 
slavery had an extensive prevalence throughout the 
oriental nations. So far from introducing the evil, it 
found the earth filled with it, and has silently and 
gradually so meliorated the relation between the 
master and the slave, that in the progress of its prin- 
ciples and spirit, it must ultimately either abolish this 
relation, or leave it resting upon a basis of the purest 
benevolence, and the source of mutual advantage. 
This, we purpose to show is the appropriate influence 
of the Bible upon slavery. Nor do we design to 
extend our remarks beyond this single point ; What 
is the legitimate influence of the Bible upon slavery ? 
This is the only question which falls within the range 
of appropriate discussion in these lectures. 

We cannot take an intelligent view of this question, 
without a glance at the condition of slavery in those 
countries where the influence of the Bible has never 
been enjoyed. The great antiquity of the Assyrian 
empire, extending beyond the period when letters 
were invented, leaves the customs of the ancient 
Assyrians in great obscurity. Five of the Canaanitish 
tribes were the vassals of Chedorlaomer for twelve 



17S INFLUENCE UPON 

years, and obtained their liberty by an open revolt. 
Abram was an inhabitant of Assyria, and at the time 
of his recovery of Lot from Chedorlaomer and his 
allies, he was the proprietor of several hundred 
"trained servants, born in his house." From the 
predatory nature of their wars, it is probable that the 
condition of slaves in Assyria was not essentially dif- 
ferent from the condition of the same class of men in 
the surrounding countries. The manner in which 
slaves were treated among the Babylonians, the Per- 
sians, and other nations of remote antiquity, was such 
as " excluded them from every privilege of society, 
and almost every blessing of life." They were 
dependent upon the caprice of imperious masters, and 
were unprotected by the laws. They might be tor- 
tured, maimed, or put to death at the arbitrary will 
of their masters. In these early ages, in times of 
great public calamity, men often sold themselves for 
slaves. While Joseph was the prime minister of 
Pharaoh, and during the seven years' famine, the 
people came to him and said, " Buy us and our land 
for bread ; and we will be servants unto Pharaoh." 
Joseph granted their request, and said unto them, 
" Behold I have bought you this day, and your land, 
for Pharaoh." Before this time, Egypt was a limited 
monarchy. The people were free, and had lands 
independent of the crown. Now they became vassals, 
feudatory tenants, and the government despotic. The 
condition of slaves in Egypt we know was suf- 
ficiently abject and degraded. We need no greater 
evidence of this, than Pharaoh's treatment of the 
children of Israel, and more especially his cruel order 
to the mid wives. Nor were they enemies, nor the 
children of enemies, who were subjected to this severe 
servitude, but the descendants of a family who had 



SLAVERY. 179 

been the saviours of Egypt, and the builders up of 
royal power. Nations whose unmixed ferocity and 
thirst for revenge were more generally satiated by the 
indiscriminate butchery of their enemies ; who denied 
them even those common funeral rites, which in the 
opinion of the times, were necessary to the repose of 
the soul after death ; who directed even their captive 
kings to be taken to prison and slain ; regarded it as a 
mitigation of the laws of war to substitute slavery for 
death. Adult males were usually put to the sword, 
and the women and children captured and enslaved. 
A distmguished writer on the principles of political 
law, remarks, " In former times, it was a custom almost 
universally estabhshed, that those who were made 
prisoners in a just and solemn war, whether they had 
surrendered themselves, or were taken by main force, 
became slaves the moment they were conducted into 
some place dependent on the conqueror. And this 
right was exercised on all persons whatever, even on 
those who happened to be in the enemy's country at 
the time when the war suddenly broke out. The 
prisoners themselves and their posterity were reduced 
to the same condition.^^ In some countries, insolvent 
debtors were sold for slaves. There were periods in 
the Roman history, when if the debt were not dis- 
charged within thirty days after a number of citations, 
by the direction of the prastor, the public crier pro- 
claimed in the forum, "Let him be punished with 
death, or sold beyond the Tiber !'^ In the Institutes 
of Justinian, slaves are said to become such in three 
ways — by birth, where the mother was a slave ; by 
captivity in war ; and by the voluntary sale of himself 
by a freeman. In Greece, the disproportion between 
freemen and slaves was nearly in the ratio of ninety 
to four hundred. This large portion of the popula- 



180 INFLUENCE UPON 

tion, according to the account given by Mitford, were 
not only slaves, but nothing could exceed the insult, 
the injury, the cruelty, to which they were subjected. 
The Spartan youth hunted them as wild beasts, for 
the sake of making themselves expert in the use of 
arms. " A scanty and disgusting dress, and a dog-skin 
cap, distinguished them from all the rest of the inha- 
bitants. Those who were too robust had to be en- 
feebled by various kinds of ill-treatment ; and if the 
masters did not do this, they became themselves liable 
to a penalty. Every slave annually received a certain 
number of stripes to remind him that he was a slave ! 
Hymns of a nobler kind they were not allowed to 
sing; but only gay and sensual songs. To complete 
their degradation, they were sometimes compelled to 
sing songs in disgrace and ridicule of themselves ; and 
to the same purpose they were also compelled to per- 
form indecent dances. In order to make the sons of 
the Spartans loathe the vice of drunkenness, the slaves 
were compelled to intoxicate themselves in public as- 
semblies. When they became too numerous, they were 
murdered clandestinely; every year, at a certain period, 
the young Spartans, clad in armour, used to hunt them ; 
and to prevent their increase, they were killed with dag- 
gers."* The same author relates an affecting anecdote 
respecting the slaves of Sparta. When, during the 
Peloponnesian war, the Spartans became apprehensive 
of the influence of their slaves, they made proclama- 
tion that the most meritorious and heroic among them 
should present themselves before the magistrate for 
the honour of freemen. In conformity with this invi- 
tation, two thousand presented themselves for this 
honour. The offer, however, was but a lure to detect 

* The Nature and Moral Influence of Heathenism, by Tholuck. 
See Biblical Rep. for 1832. 



SLAVERY. 181 

the most aspiring and generous minded of those 
mihappy beings, and draw out their choicest spirits. 
Instead of the promised freedom, aU were inhumanly- 
slain, in accordance with the atrocious policy of that 
severe and sanguinary state. The slaves of Greece 
were generally branded like cattle. According to the 
laws of Lycurgus, they could neither be emancipated, 
nor sold. In Sicily and Italy, they were chained and 
confined to work in dungeons. Rome was a continual 
market for slaves, where they were commonly exposed 
naked. It is computed by the historian, Gibbon, that 
this class composed one half of the inhabitants of that 
extensive empire, and could not have been less than 
sixty millions. As a body of men, they were con- 
sidered dangerous to the welfare of the state, and 
were therefore depressed in every way. They were 
left entirely at the disposal of their masters, who might 
treat them in whatever manner they pleased, and 
who were invested with absolute power and authority 
over them. The aged, the sick, and the infirm, were 
carried to an island on the Tiber, where they were 
suffered to perish. Vedius Apollo, an intimate friend 
of Augustus, fed his fishes with the flesh of his slaves. 
Nor was this degradation of limited extent. A single 
individual in Rome had slaves to the amount of four 
thousand, one hundred and sixteen. When the mas- 
ter was murdered, and the murderer could not be 
detected, all his slaves, with their wives and children, 
were put to death. There was a class of slaves among 
the Romans, called the Ostiarii, who were chained 
Uke watch-dogs before the houses. The laws of Rome 
regarded them all simply as property ; not as persons, 
but as things ; and as far as they could do so from the 
nature of the case itself, hardly distinguished them 
from brutes. Nor was it until the time of the empe- 



182 INFLUENCE TTPON 

ror Adrian, more than a hundred years after the birth 
of Christ, that masters were divested of the arbitrary- 
power over their slaves which they possessed in the 
days of the republic and the Csesars. 

Such was the condition of slavery in pagan lands. 
Such was essentially its condition when God called 
Abram from an idolatrous country, to make him the 
founder of the Hebrew State. Such was its condition 
when God gave the moral and civil law to Moses on 
Sinai and in the wilderness. Such was its condition 
when Nehemiah the Hebrew reformer, a man of no 
common integrity and boldness, roused the minds of 
that degenerate community to a conviction of their 
violated obligations. Such was its condition when 
the Saviour descended as the great Teacher of men, 
and when his apostles so faithfully and fearlessly 
published and enforced the great truths and duties 
of the Christian dispensation. Such was its condition 
during all the progressive revelations which God 
gave to men down to the period when the sacred 
canon was completed. Slavery most certainly had 
existed, and still existed in its worst forms, and with 
all its most fearful and appalling attendants and 
consequences. It existed extensively among the Jews, 
even down to the days of the apostles. Tacitus 
mentions that there were 20,000 slaves in the army 
of Simon, when Vespasian was marching against 
Jerusalem. 

Here then, in view of these plain and affecting 
facts, we propose a grave question. How did the 
Scriptures treat this solemn subject? What is the 
course which Moses and the prophets, Christ and the 
apostles pursued in relation to this deeply interesting 
matter ? 

It is not difficult to conceive of a course which they 



SLAVERY. 1S3 

might, and in the judgment of some persons, ought to 
have adopted. They might have reasoned thus. — • 
' Slavery is wrong. No man, no set of men have a 
right to deprive another of his personal liberty. The 
obligation of service at the discretion of another is 
void. Without the contract, or consent, or crime of 
the servant, such an obligation is, in all cases, sinful. 
All men are born equally free and independent, and 
have the same right to their freedom which they have 
to property, or life. In all its features, the whole 
system of slavery is utterly at war with the law of 
nature and the law of God. Justice and humanity 
shrink from it. It is unjust in the same sense and 
for the same reason, as it is to steal, to rob, or to 
murder. It destroys the lives, depraves the morals, 
corrupts the purity, and ruins the souls of men. It 
discourages industry, makes a mock of the marriage 
vow, shuts out the light of religious truth from more 
than one-half of mankind, and reduces them to a 
degradation below the dignity and responsibility of 
intellectual and immortal beings. It is an evil there- 
fore, that may not be endured. The owners of slaves 
must everywhere be denounced as wicked men. 
They must be held up as the objects of public censure 
and obloquy. They are giants in cruelty and crime. 
They are men-stealers, robbers, pirates, and may no 
more have a place in the church of God on the earth, 
than they can be admitted into the kingdom of heaven. 
The system of which they are the abettors must be 
put down. No matter by what revolutions in church 
or state ; no matter by what agitations, or insurrec- 
tions, it must be put down. It is a sin, and cannot 
be abolished too soon. Duty is ours, events are 
God's. No matter how disastrous the consequences 

16 



184 INFLUENCE UPON 

of arresting it, it must be arrested, be they what they 
may !' 

Such a course as this I say the Bible might have 
recommended. And why did it not recommend 
such a course ? It was not from inadvertence, be- 
cause it frequently adverted to the subject. It must 
have been from design. The evils of slavery were 
under the eye of the sacred writers, and met them 
everywhere. They were wise and good men, and 
under the plenary inspiration of the Holy Ghost. 
They were divinely instructed in the best method of 
fulfilUng their great commission, and of carrying the 
designs of it into execution. The great Author of the 
Bible exercised his wisdom in this feature of his 
revelation as well as in every other. Nor can it be 
doubted by any, except those who would invalidate 
all confidence in his word, that he has selected the 
best method of instructing the world upon this impor- 
tant subject. There was in the nature of things, but 
one best method ; and that method was not only 
known to God, but he was under a moral necessity 
of adopting it. Those who find fault with the in- 
structions of the Bible in relation to slavery, directly 
arraign the rectitude, goodness, and wisdom of Him 
who does all things after the counsel of his own will. 
Nor may it be supposed there was any want of sen- 
sibility in the sacred writers to the deplorable state 
of the slave population. Nor did they want firmness 
and energy of character ; but were everywhere bold, 
determined, and steady to their purpose. They were 
never rash, but never fearful of opposing themselves 
to the sweUing, menacing tide of the corrupt pro- 
pensities and passions of men, nor hesitated to do all 
that they could for truth and right, for rehgion and 
virtue, for order and happiness, and for the protection 



SLAVERY. 185 

of the oppressed, however formidable the opposition 
they met with, however great the sacrifices, or how- 
ever imminent the danger. The reason wliy they 
did not pursue the course to which we have re- 
ferred, must have been that it was not the true and 
right course. It was neither right in itself, nor best 
for the master or the slave, for the church or the 
world. 

What then was the course which the Bible pur- 
sued ? In giving this book to mankind, its wise and 
benevolent Author undertook the work of a great 
reformer. His object was to benefit the world, and 
subdue it ultimately to himself, by setting in motion 
a series of moral influences, that were silently to 
operate for good among the nations, and gradually to 
renew the face of the earth. His plans v/ere vast and 
magnificent, and would not be accomplished in a 
day. Nor did he fail to count the cost of the enter- 
prise. If there were evils in human society, he 
modified and mitigated them, because to have done 
more, would in the end have been to accomplish less. 
If there were existing institutions, long and deeply 
imbedded in the frame of human society, the abuse 
of which could not but be deplored, he so regulated 
the institutions themselves as to sever them from their 
abuses, while he breathed into all his moral instruc- 
tions and government, a spirit that should finally 
eradicate all evil, and fill the earth with holiness and 
salvation. 

Nor is there any subject to which these remarks 
are more applicable than that of slavery. Let us 
turn our thoughts in the first place, to what may be 
gathered from the Old Testament in relation to this 
subject. In glancing at the early history of the 
Hebrews, and before the giving of the law to Moses, 



186 INFLUENCE UPON 

we have already seen that the fathers of that nation, 
the patriarchs, possessed slaves in great numbers. 
And yet we do not find that God reproved these holy 
men for being the proprietors of slaves. He did not 
at that time forbid slavery. Though, if he designed 
to do so at allj it would seem to us to have been the 
proper time for him to have required Abram to eman- 
cipate his slaves, yet he made no such requisition. 
He had just called him out from the corruptions of a 
pagan empire, for the purpose of founding in his 
family his visible church, and in them of setting an 
example to the world of a society that should be 
under his own guidance and direction. And yet he 
did not make it a condition of Abram^s adoption into 
his family that he should give freedom to the servants, 
that were bought with his money, that were bom in 
his house, or that were given to him by Abimelech. 
Instead of this, he so far recognizes and sanctions the 
proprietorship of this patriarch in his servants, that 
he required every male among them to be circum- 
cised, and claimed for them all the privileges of the 
covenant, of which circumcision was the seal. Gen. 
xvii. 10 — 13, 27. 

If we pass from the days of Abraham to those of 
Moses, we find a moral law revealed from heaven, 
and a code of civil statutes, in both of which the 
existence of a state of servitude is distinctly recog- 
nized, without being forbidden. In the fourth com- 
mandment it is written, "The seventh day is the 
sabbath of the Lord thy God : in it thou shalt not do 
any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, nor 
thy man-servant, nor thy maid-servant.'^ And in the 
tenth commandment it is written, "Thou shalt not 
covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy 
neighbour's wife, nor his man-servant, nor his maid- 



i 



SLAVERY. 187 

servant." If from the moral, we turn to the civil 
code of the Hebrews, we find the following facts. 
As one of its great and capital principles, it forbids 
the slave trade, or the seizing of those who are free 
and selling them as slaves. " He that stealeth a man 
and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he 
shall surely be put to death." This is the deliberate 
judgment of the divine mind in relation to every 
branch of this nefarious traffic. It is an offence 
punished with death. The original man-stealer and 
the receiver of the stolen person must lose their life 
under the Mosaic law. The slave-captain and the 
negro-dealer are here admonished of their reward. 
This code also recognizes the distinction between 
slaves and hired servants. " It shall not seem hard 
unto thee when thou sendest him awa.y from thee ; 
for he hath been worth double a hired servant unto 
thee, in serving thee these six years." Deut. xv. 18, 
and Lev. xxv. 39, 40. So that when this code 
speaks of servants, it speaks of them not as hired 
freemen, but as slaves. The Mosaic law refers to 
the following ways in which a Hebrew might lose his 
liberty. In extreme poverty, he might sell himself. 
" If thy brother that dwelleth by thee be waxen poor, 
and be sold unto thee, thou shalt not compel him to 
serve as a bond servant, but as a hired servant and a 
sojourner he shall be with thee, and shall serve thee 
unto the year of the Jubilee." Lev. xxv. 39. A 
father might sell his children. " If a man sell his 
daughter to be a maid-servant, she shall not go out 
as the men-servants do." Exod. xxi. 7. Insolvent 
debtors became the slaves of their creditors. " My 
husband is dead, and the creditor is come to take my 
two sons to be bondmen." II Kings, iv. 1. A thief, 
if he had not the money to pay the fine exacted from 
16 * 



188 INFLUENCE UPON 

him by the law, was by the sentence of the judge to 
be sold for the benefit of him whom he had robbed. 
" If a thief be found, he shall make full restitution ; 
if he have nothing, then he shall be sold for his theft.'^ 
Exod. xxii. 3. As the Hebrews were liable to be 
taken prisoners of war, and sold for slaves, so a 
Hebrew slave who had been ransomed from a gentile, 
might be sold by him who ransomed him to one of 
his own nation, and the price of his redemption was 
^^ reckoned from the year that he was sold, unto the 
year of jubilee." Lev. xxv. 50. The Hebrews were 
also allowed to hold slaves whom they purchased 
from the surrounding nations, who should be " their 
possession, and an inheritance for their children after 
them." Lev. xxv. 45. All the prisoners of war 
also that were taken by the Hebrews, were slaves. 
" When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against 
it, then proclaim peace unto it. And it shall be, if it 
make an answer of peace, that all the people that 
shall be found therein shall be tributaries mito thee 
and shall serve thee. But if it make war against 
thee, then thou shalt besiege it, and shalt smite every 
male thereof with the edge of the sword, but the 
women and the little ones shalt thou take unto thy- 
self." Deut. XX. 14; and Numbers, xxxi. IS — 35. 
In these seven ways, slavery might originate among 
the Hebrews. And it is worthy to be distinctly 
remarked, that with the exception of those slaves that 
were purchased from surrounding nations, and those 
who were taken in war, it was a state of servitude 
originating with the consent of the servant, or grow- 
ing out of his fault. It was also a servitude greatly 
modified by very many important mitigations. Every- 
where the Jewish law is most scrupulously protective 
of the person of the slave, while it allows for the 



SLAVERY. 189 

master's peculiar relation, on the ground that the 
servant is "his money.'' While it recognizes the 
right of the master to the possession of the servant, it 
recognizes no rights that are inconsistent with the 
high nature of his being, but is itself the guardian 
of every right, founded on his obligations as a moral 
and responsible agent, to God or his fellow men. 
As in the patriarchal, so it was in the Mosaic age : 
the slave passed under the bonds of God's covenant, 
Avas consecrated by his master to God, and was 
educated in his fear. The law guarded his person 
from severity, in some cases by the death of the 
master, and in others by his own immediate freedom. 
He enjoyed all religious rites and privileges, not 
excepting the sabbath, the year of jubilee, the annual 
festivals, the new moons, the day of atonement, and 
other seasons of appointed rest. He had a sure and 
certain support, and was entitled to all affection and 
kindness. Everywhere God admonished the Hebrews 
against treating their slaves as they themselves had 
been treated in Egypt, and as slaves v/ere generally 
treated in surrounding countries. In addition to this, 
let it be borne in mind, that no Hebrew could by the 
laws of Moses, be a slave for a longer term than six 
years, unless by intermarrying with his master's 
servants, or for other causes, he chose to remain in 
servitude ; and at the end of the six years, he was 
to be sent out liberally furnished. A female Hebrew 
servant also, frequently became the wife of her master, 
or the wife of his son : and in that event was entitled 
to all the privileges of honourable matrimony, or a 
lawful daughter. I cannot help thinking, that the 
system of servitude under the laws of Moses, so far 
as it regarded slaves who were themselves Hebrews, 
was not unlike the system of apprenticeship in Great 



190 INFLUENCE UPON 

Britain, and in this country, where a child is bound 
out for a term of years, and at the end of that period 
the parent receives a stipulated compensation for his 
services. 

The two most revolting features of slavery among 
this people are recorded in the following paiagraphs. 
" If a man smite his servant or his maid with a rod, 
and he die under his hand, he shall surely be punish- 
ed ;" and the punishment was death. " Notwithstand- 
ing, if he continue a day or two, he shall not be 
punished, for he is his money." The reason of this 
law I suppose to be this. If the servant survived a 
number of days, it could not be so clearly proved that 
the punishment occasioned his death, as to justify the 
death of the master. It might rather be charitably 
presumed, that he died from some other cause. There 
would not be conclusive evidence of deh berate malice. 
The pecuniary interest which the master had in his 
servant was a presumption in his favour, and the law 
would not condemn unless on the strongest testimony. 
And was not this right ; and are not, ought not all 
penal laws to be construed as favourably as possible 
to the accused ? The other paragraph is this. " Both 
thy bond-men and thy bond-maids which thou shalt 
have, shall be of the heathen that are round about 
you. Of them shall ye buy bond-men and bond- 
maids. Moreover, of the children of the strangers, 
that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and 
of their families that are with you, which they beget 
in your land: and they shall be your possession. And 
ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children 
after you, to inherit them for a possession ; they shall 
be your bond-men forever." It seems difficult to deny 
that this feature of slavery existed among the Jews 
mitil the final destruction of their city. The language 



SLAVERY. 191 

of the passage is that of injunction, but it implies 
nothing more than that the Hebrews were permitted 
to procure slaves of the surrounding nations, and hold 
them in perpetual bondage. No considerate man sup- 
poses that they were required to do this, and that the 
Hebrew who neglected to do it was living in sin. We 
have two remarks to submit in relation to this gene- 
ral permission. The first is, that the kind of servitude 
to which foreign slaves were subjected was in all re- 
spects tlie same with the servitude of the Hebrews 
themselves, except that it was perpetual. They were 
protected by the laws ; were circumcised, and intro- 
duced to all the blessings and promises of God's pecu- 
liar people. But there is another remark. The con- 
dhion of the Hebrews was a peculiar condition. The 
nations with which they were surrounded, were na- 
tions whom for their total apostasy from the worship 
of the true God, their degraded idolatry, their un- 
natural cruelty and pollution, the Hebrews were re- 
quired to exterminate. There was one condition on 
which they were relieved from the execution of this 
decree. It was that the Canaanites submitted to their 
invaders, renounced their idolatry, and became He- 
brews. Their conquerors were the ministers of the 
divine justice, commanded to execute this sentence, 
and to relax its rigour so far as their enemies submit- 
ted to their government and their religion. The right 
to destroy carried with it the right to enslave ; while 
the slaves purchased their lives by the voluntary sur- 
render of their liberty. 

I cannot think that I have set the slavery of the 
Hebrews in too fair colours. I have not designed to 
do so. Most certainly, it was a very diiferent thing 
from what it was in the surrounding nations. Look 
at the contrast, and see tlie hifluence of the Bible upon 



192 INFLUENCE UPON 

slavery, even at that early age of the world. Slavery 
there was among the Hebrews, but few of its evils. 
The entire dispensation of the Jews made at once a 
bold and decided invasion upon its abuses and eradi- 
cated them. And yet it is a fact equally clear, that it 
left the relation between master and servant untouch- 
ed, and instead of denouncing slavery as a crime, is 
offended only with its abuses. 

Such was the melioration which the Bible intro- 
duced in regard to this large class of our fellow-beings, 
for whom it so kindly and wisely legislated under the 
old dispensation and down to the coming of Christ. 
And nothing is more obvious than that, while it exert- 
ed the happiest influence upon this relation of social 
life, it did not overturn and destroy it. The same 
essential principles of reform, and no others, we find 
every where developed in the New Testament. Em- 
ployed exclusively in propagating the doctrines of 
their Divine Master, his apostles no where opened a 
crusade upon the despotism of the government under 
which they lived, or upon the institutions sanctioned 
by its laws. Melioration in civil affairs they left to 
be gradually brought about by the silent operation of 
those divine principles which purify the heart ; which 
have in their progress banished such an amount of 
sin, tyranny, and slavery from the world ; and which 
are destined, in the same heaven-like way, to com- 
plete their work. In all the mutual intercourse of 
men, the great maxim which they enforce is one and 
anchanging : " Therefore all things whatsoever ye 
would that men should do unto you, do ye even so to 
them ; for this is the law and the prophets." This 
spirit runs through the whole of the New Testament, 
and addresses itself equally to the master and the 
slave. One cannot but observe with admiration, the 



SLAVERY. 193 

high-born wisdom, the meekness and gentleness with 
which the apostles conducted this discussion. The re- 
ligion they taught is a religion of love. It breathes 
peace on earth and good will to men. What incon- 
gruity with such a spirit to have excommunicated 
every slaveholder ! or to have made immediate eman- 
cipation the condition of church membership ! What 
incongruity with such a spirit to have excited revolt 
among the Christian slaves, or to have disseminated 
notions which must have revolutionized the principles 
of social order, and broken down all the distinctions of 
rank and condition ! They did nothing of all this. 
They were taught from above, and their wisdom and 
meekness gave efficacy to their ministrations. They 
had access to the slave population of the Roman em- 
pire ; they penetrated " Caesar's household ;" they 
urged the cause of their Master in the palaces of kings, 
and carried the hearts of masters and slaves by gain- 
ing their impartial attention, and expressing the gen- 
tleness of Christ. 

I have been not a little affected with their instruc- 
tions to both these classes of men. Mark their deli- 
cacy, and at the same time their tenderness and sym- 
pathy when they address the poor slave — just weak 
enough to begin to think he is an emperor, because 
by the grace of God he has become a Christian. "Art 
thou called being a servant ? Care not for it. But 
if thou mayst be free, use it rather. For he that is 
called in the Lord, being a servant, is the Lord's 
freeman. Let every man abide in the same calling 
wherein he is called !" How wise ! how kind ! 
How different from some modern reformers ! I seem 
to see the great apostle laying his paternal hand upon 
the head of the poor slave, and hear him say. Care 
not for your slavery. You are the Lord's freeman. 



194 INFLUENCE UPON 

Stay where you are. You shall have a throne here- 
after. And that your master may share it with you, 
let him see your spirit of love and meekness. '' Be 
obedient to your masters, according to the flesh, with 
good will doing service as unto the Lord, and not 
unto men. Account your masters w^orthy of all 
honour that the name of God be not blasphemed !^' 
If you have Christian masters, demean not yourselves 
superciliously on this account, but rather more affec- 
tionately and dutifully ; " despise them not because 
they are brethren, but rather do them service because 
they are faithful and beloved !" Nor is it to the 
slave only that they address their counsels. While 
they neither excommunicate, nor even rebuke the 
master, simply because he is a master, they do not 
withhold their rebuke of all his oppressien and injus- 
tice — nay they thunder forth their anathemas against 
the degradation, the ignorance, the misery, the wicked- 
ness, and every violation of the personal and domes- 
tic rights to which he subjects his slaves, and solemnly 
remind him of the fearfulness of that day when God 
shall call him to account. They admonish him not 
to be unmindful of the obligations to his slaves on his 
part. They say to him, " Master, give unto your 
servants*that which is just and equal. Do the same 
things unto them, forbearing threatening; knowing 
that your Master also is in heaven, neither is there 
any respect of persons with him !" They say to him, 
You are responsible as well as your slaves ; and as 
you would enjoy the favour of your Judge, honour 
his religion, and find mercy at that day, be merci- 
ful as your Father in heaven is merciful. Your slaves 
are not things, but persons ; they are not brutes, but 
men ; they are not your creatures, but God's ; they 
are not your property, but his who 'made of one 
* AovXoig, slaves. 



SLAVERY. 195 

blood all nations of men for to dwell on the face of 
the earth, if haply they might feel after him and find 
him.^ '' 

Thus do the Scriptures of the Old and New Testa- 
ment treat the subject of slavery. They sanction no 
other slavery than this. The exclusive title of man 
over a fellow worm, who belongs not to him, but to 
God ; the assertion of any human will as supreme over 
a fellow-creature, when there is no supreme will in 
heaven or on earth, but the divine will ; the lording 
it over the conscience of the slave, when God alone 
is Lord of the conscience — this they rebuke and indig- 
nantly condemn. Whatever servitude denies the 
slave the rights of his moral nature, annihilates his 
capacity of improvement, crushes intellect that would 
otherwise brighten and expand, subdues aifections 
that would otherwise be elevated to the spirit of 
heaven, shuts out the light of truth, and binds body 
and soul in the chains of ignorance and death, 
they denounce as one of the things which the Lord 
hateth. But a slavery that is dissevered from all 
these evils, and dissociated from the abuses to which 
it is so exposed from the corrupt propensities and 
selfish passsions of men, it no where, to my know- 
ledge, forbids. Such a slavery, for example, as Onesi- 
mus sustained to Philemon, a state of Christian servi- 
tude, a state in which the master and the slave were 
required to conduct themselves as brethren and heirs 
of the common faith and salvation, Paul certainly did 
not forbid, when he restored this fugitive slave to his 
master. So far from justifying him for absconding, 
he required him to go back, at the same time furnish- 
ing him with a letter of introduction to his master, 
entreating him to overlook his fault, and regard him as a 
penitent and faithful servant, and " brother beloved." 

17 



196 INFLUENCE UPON 

I hold myself ready to revise these views, whenever 
I see evidence from the Bible that they are not true. 
Nothing is more plain to my mind, than that the word 
of God recognizes the relation between master and 
slave as one of the established institutions of the age; 
and that while it addresses slaves as Christian men, 
and Christian men as slaveholders, it so modifies the 
whole system of slavery, as to give a death blow to 
all its abuses, and breathes such a spirit, that in the 
same proportion in which its principles and spirit are 
imbibed, the yoke of bondage will melt away, all its 
abuses cease, and every form of human oppression 
will be unknown. The Bible is no agitator. It gra- 
dually meliorates what it cannot suddenly remove. 
Instead of carrying fire and sword throughout the 
world without the least prospect of advantage, it aims 
at making men holy, and fitting them for heaven. It 
changes human governments only as it changes the 
human character ; and thus produces all those altera- 
tions which commend themselves to a mind en- 
lightened by the truth and Spirit of God. It aims at 
transforming the world; but it is by transforming the 
dispositions and hearts of men, and difiTusing through- 
out all the social institutions, the supreme love of God, 
and the impartial love of man. 

Let us now take a brief view of the practical eifect 
of these general principles, as they have actually been 
applied by several Christian states. European civili- 
zation may be said to have commenced from the fall 
of the Roman empire. To say nothing of antecedent 
periods, from this time, the Bible, though often in the 
hands of a corrupted hierarchy, has been exerting a 
powerful influence on all the social institutions. Bar- 
barism gradually subsided into feudalism, and feudalism 
gave way to the various modifications of civil liberty. 



sSLAVERY. 197 

Slavery was among the last of the evils so imbedded 
in the constitution of human society, to which the 
Bible extended its influence. " Mr. Barrington, who 
has given a very strong picture of the degradation 
and oppression of the tenants under the English 
tenure of pure villainage, is of opinion that feudal 
servitude existed in England so late as the reign of 
Elizabeth."* But the personal servitude which grew 
out of the abuses of the feudal system, was a much 
milder form of slavery than that which existed among 
the ancients. " No person in England was a villain 
in the e3^e of the law, except in relation to his master. 
To all other persons he was a freeman, and against 
them he had rights of property ; and his master for 
excessive injuries committed upon the vassal was 
answerable at the king^s suit."t The importation of 
negro slaves into the Spanish colonies had commenced 
as early as 1501 ; and in 1517, the emperor Charles 
V. granted a patent to certain persons to supply the 
Spanish islands with slaves from Africa. But this 
enterprise was opposed with great spirit and vigour 
by some of the Christians of Spain, who had great 
influence in mitigating slavery in the colonies. The 
first Englishman who introduced the practice of buy- 
ing, or kidnapping negroes in Africa, and transporting 
and selhng them for slaves in the West Indies, was 
Sir John Hawkins, an Enghsh admiral born at Ply- 
mouth, and who signalized himself under Ehzabeth, 
especially against the invincible armada. It is mat- 
ter for lamentation, that having signalized himself in 
so good a cause, he should have become signal in a 
cause which loads his name with everlasting reproach. 
This was in the year 1562. From that time to the 
year 1808, the British West Indies became the great 
receptacle of these unhappy beings. "In 1620, a 
* Kent's Commentaries, Vol. II. f Ibid. 



19S INFLUENCE UPON 

Dutch vessel carried a cargo of slaves from Africa to 
Virginia, and this was the sad epoch of the introduc- 
tion of African slaves into the English colonies on 
this continent. The Dutch records of New Nether- 
lands allude to the existence of slaves in their settle- 
ments on the Hudson, as early as 1626 ; and slavery- 
is mentioned in the Massachusetts laws, betv/een 1630 
and 1641/'* 

Thus for well nigh three successive centuries, the 
negro race remained almost without an advocate — 
crushed, broken, and deserted, and the objects of a 
cupidity which it would seem nothing could satiate. 
England, deeply stained with the guilt of this foul 
traffic, at length stands foremost for the relief and 
elevation of the African race, unless we except the 
government and people of Massachusetts, who, in 
1645-'46, so boldly protested against the introduction 
of African slaves into the colony as a heinous crime. t 
At the commencement of that distinguished era which 
was introduced about half a century ago, when the 
missionary spirit began to agitate the Christian world; 
when the judgments of heaven began to descend on 
the nations which had " given their power and strength 
to the beast ;" when the cause of evangelical truth 
was revived, and the Spirit of God began to descend 
in that series of revivals of religion which has not 
ceased to the present hour ; a movement was begun 
in Britain, by which Christianity and civilization 
were conveyed to long-neglected and abused Africa. 
Clarkson, Sharpe, Wilberforce, Thornton, and Gre- 
gorie, became the undaunted and unwearied advo- 
cates for the abolition of the slave trade throughout 
the civilized world, and the inquiry was every where 

* Kents Commentaries. 

f Winthrop's and Bancroft's Histories, as referred to by Chan- 
cellor Kent. 



SLAVERY. 199 

agitated, whether it was not practicable to wipe 
away this deep stain from Christian lands. About 
the same time the establishment of the colony of 
Sierra-Leone, and the fearful revolution in St. Do- 
mingo, gave additional impulse to the enterprise, and 
awakened the hope that the day of Africa's deliver- 
ance was near. " God Almighty has set before me," 
said Wilberforce, " two great objects, the suppression 
of the slave trade, and the reformation of manners." 
After some few unsuccessful struggles, the celebrated 
Mr. Pitt was enlisted in this cause, and Mr. Fox con- 
cluded the last speech he ever made in parhament 
with the immortal resolution for the abolition of the 
slave trade.* In the mean time, such men as Sir 
Samuel Romilly and Sir James Mcintosh, aided by 
venerable prelates, threw the vigour of their minds 
and the ardour of their hearts into the benevolent 
struggle, and Edmund Burke had exclaimed, " This 
is not a traffic in the labour of man, but in the man 
himself!" In March, 1807, the bill for abolition was 
passed. After the general peace in Europe, in IS 14, 
the subject was again brought before parliament for 
the purpose of securing the co-operation of the other 
Christian powers in the suppression of this nefarious 
traffic. In 1823, the house of commons unanimously 
adopted a series of resolutions with the ultimate view 
of emancipating all slaves within the British dominions. 
The parliament of Great Britain had peculiar facilities 
for doing this. It had unhmited power. The slaves 
were not a constituent part of their own population, 
but in remote and feeble islands, having no voice in 
the government at home, and whom a few ships of 
the line could awe into obedience. In 1826, the 
same resolutions were adopted unanimously by the 
house of lords. A little before this, Mr. Buxton and 
* See Croly's Life of George IV. 



200 INFLUENCE UPON 

Mr. Canning had introduced the resolutions for the 
more lenient treatment of the slaves, especially as 
regards religious instruction and their social condition. 
And, in 1833, a more decisive course of action was 
adopted ; and the memorable bill passed, which, at an 
expense of £20,000,000, as an equitable consideration 
to the planters for the slaves, resolved on the entire 
abolition of slavery throughout the British colonies. 

But, as we have already seen, Great Britain, in op- 
position to repeated expostulation and strong remon- 
strance from such men as Franklin, Adams, and Han- 
cock, had extended the evils of slavery, and diffused 
this malignant plague throughout lands to which the 
omnipotence of her parhament could no longer be ex- 
tended. Though long since abolished in New Eng- 
land, slavery was introduced into that country soon 
after its settlement. But it was in a form modified 
and mitigated by the spirit and principles of the Bible. 
While the cupidity of New England had done much 
to replenish the slave market of the south, the institu- 
tions of the Mosaic law were professedly the model 
of her own slavery. It was early enacted in the 
Massachusetts colony, that " all slaves shall have the 
liberties and Christian usage which the law of God 
established in Israel concerning such persons, doth 
morally require.'^ The law in the state of Connecticut 
is thus expressed by Judge Reeve, in his law of baron 
and femme. " Slavery here was very far from being 
of the absolute and rigid kind. The master had no 
control over the life of his slave. If he killed him, he 
was liable to the same punishment as if he killed a 
freeman. He was as liable to be sued by the slave 
in an action for beating, or wounding, or for immode- 
rate chastisement, as he would be if he had thus 
treated an apprentice. A slave was capable of hold- 
ing property in character of a devisee, or legatee. If 



SLAVERY. 201 

the master should take away such property, his slave 
would be entitled to an action against him. Slaves 
had the same right of Ufe and property as apprentices ; 
and the difference between them was this, an appren- 
tice is a servant for a time, and a slave is a servant 
for life." 

And where the Bible has begun to exert this influ- 
ence, it does more. It gradually remedies the evil, 
and wears it away. It did in Massachusetts, and sla- 
very was abolished by their constitution. It did in 
Connecticut, and statutes were passed in 1783 and 
1797, which have in their gentle and gradual opera- 
tion, totally extinguished slavery in that State. It 
did in New Jersey by an act of the legislature in 1784. 
It did in Pennsylvania, by a similar act in 1780. In 
New York, for a long series of years, the Bible ap- 
pears to have exerted little influence in mitigating the 
condition of the slave. " The master and mistress 
were authorized to punish their slaves at discretion, 
not extending to life or limb, and each town was au- 
thorized to appoint a common whipper for their slaves, 
to whom a salary was to be allowed. In the year 
1740, it was observed by the legislature, that all due 
encouragement ought to be given to the direct impor- 
tation of slaves, and all smuggUng of slaves condemn- 
ed, as an eminent discouragement to the fair trader I" 
The criminal code against them was fearfully severe. 
When capitally impeached, they were often tried out 
of the ordinary course of justice, and denied the rights 
and privileges of free subjects under like accusations. 
They were convicted on suspicion and on testimony 
that would have been rejected by any court where a 
white man was the accused person. In 1741 on the 
discovery of what was called the "negro plot," 
thirteen were adjudged to the stake in our own city.* 
* Smith's History of New York. 



202 INFLUENCE UPON 

The last execution of this kind was witnessed at 
Poiighkeepsie shortly before the commencement of 
the revolutionary war.* But this severity could not 
long be sustained in a Christian land. In process of 
time the penal code against slaves was meliorated ; 
facilities were multiplied for the manumission of 
slaves ; and the importation of slaves was at length 
prohibited. Laws were enacted also to teach the 
slaves to read, and a system commenced for the gra- 
dual abolition of slavery. Till at length, by the act 
of the 31st of March, 1817, it was declared that every 
subject of the State, from and after the 4th day of 
July, 1827, shall be free. And now tell me, where 
except in Christian lands, can any such history of sla- 
very be found as this ? Is it not true that the Bible 
has silently and gradually so meliorated the relation 
between the master and the slave, that in the progress 
of its principles and spirit, it must ultimately either 
abolish this relation, or leave it on a basis of the purest 
benevolence ! 

I am pained to say, that slavery in no very miti- 
gated form still exists in these United States. There 
are Christian masters to whom the evils and abuses 
of slavery are unknown. Nor are they few. And 
yet there are abuses in this system which it is high 
time were eradicated. I speak not now of those 
physical evils to which these our suffering fellow men 
are subjected, but of the domestic wrongs, the intel- 
lectual ignorance, and moral debasement to which they 
are doomed. The slave population of the south are 
in many places by law forbidden to read ; they may 
not unlock the treasures of human and divine know- 
ledge. This cannot be right. This must be an offence 
in the sight of God. Christian men at the south, high- 
minded and honourable men should adopt early mea- 
* Kent's Commentaries. 



SLAVERY. 203 

sures to remove this evil. They scarcely know how 
such a policy appears to impartial minds of all lands. 
The condition of slaves in the southern States is des- 
cribed by Chancellor Kent, to be " more analogous to 
that of the slaves of the ancients, than to that of the 
villains of feudal times, both in respect to the degra- 
dation of the slaves, and the full dominion and power 
of the master. The statute regulations with regard to 
slaves, follow the principles of the civil law, and are 
extremely severe, but the master has no power over 
life, or limb ; and the severe letter of their laws is soft- 
ened and corrected by the humanity of the age, and 
the spirit of Christianit}'"." This is a sufficiently melan- 
choly picture from such a pen. We lament it ; we 
deeply lament it before God and the world. Nor is this 
the worst. It is estimated in a recent and important 
work on the slave trade, by Mr. Buxton of the Eng- 
lish parliament, that not less than one thousand 
negroes are, even at this late period of the world, 
every day torn from their homes in Africa, by the 
horrible cupidity of their fellow men. 

And how shall the evil be remedied ? Just as the 
Bible, and all sound experience tell us it has been 
remedied; through the influence of the gospel, by 
the power of Christian truth, by the meekness and 
gentleness of Christian men. Crossness, calumny, 
obstinacy, and fury are not the remedy. Angry pas- 
sions and bitter invective are not the remedy. Strife 
and ill will, acrimonious discussions and sanguinary 
war are not the remedy. These will throw a thousand 
obstacles in your path, and involve you in endless 
difficulties, and create needless enemies and opposi- 
tion. Who does not see that it has done so already, 
and that in Virginia, in Kentucky, in Maryland, and 
in the District of Columbia, a very sensible and in- 
auspicious change has taken place within a very few 



204 INFLUENCE UPON 

years in the sentiments of the public in relation to 
slavery? The late Dr. Griffin, one of the most 
devoted friends of the coloured race in this land, said 
to me a few months before his death, " I do not see 
that the efforts in favour of immediate emancipation, 
have effected any thing but to rivet the chains of the 
poor slave." Is not this a lamentable fact ? Deeply 
as this evil was laid in the foundations of our country, 
it has already disappeared in many portions of it, 
driven away by the spirit of the gospel and of liberty ; 
and if we are to expect its entire banishment, we 
must look for it in the operation of the same gentle, 
yet not less effectual causes which have hitherto 
lightened the sorrows of the captive, and led the north 
to free herself from this stain. We would remedy 
the evil by the light of truth, by the ardour of love, 
by the soft mercies that distil from the olive branch 
of peace, by the balm of Gilead. The recklessness 
of dissension, the disunion of our body politic, and its 
consequent horrors will be disastrous both to the 
master and the slave. Desperate haste and incon- 
siderate heedlessness will but defeat their object. 
And where do we find the authority and encourage- 
ment to such a course ? In the wishes, but not in 
the judgment ; in the unthinking, and I fear at times 
designing fanaticism of a few modern reformers, but 
not in past experience ; not in calm, foreseeing bene- 
volence ; and above all, we find it not in the word of 
God. Believe me, my young friends, there is "a 
more excellent way." You may shut out the light 
of truth from the master and the slave ; you may 
give birth to unsleeping jealousies and bitter ani- 
mosity which a century cannot assuage ; you may 
divide the land which is otherwise destined to be the 
glory of the church and the world ; and you will 
have only bound faster the chains which would have 



SLAVERY. 205 

relaxed and fallen off, and have paralyzed the hands 
of Ethiopia just as slie was "stretching them out 
unto God.^' Hesitate then, ere you throw your- 
selves into a stream, which, as passion and bitter 
animosity shall swell its current, will launch you on 
an ocean of dissension and civil strife. Pause, ere 
you put your hands to a mighty engine, which, when 
in motion, you will have no power to guide or 
restrain — perhaps an engine of destruction, the effects 
of which may be felt through coming centuries, 
crushing the dearest interests of yourselves and your 
posterity. And while you pause, will you not listen 
to the dictates of an unbiassed judgment; to the best 
and most enhghtened feeUngs of your hearts ? Will 
you not consult that Book which, while it refrains 
from rudely interfering with the existing institutions 
of society, is destined by the mild diffusion of its light 
and influence, to banish the evils of slavery from the 
world ? 



LECTUKE IX. 

THE INFLUENCE OP THE BIBLE ON THE EXTENT 
AND CERTAINTY OF MORAL SCIENCE. 

That which gives vakie and excellency to the reli- 
gion of the Bible is its truth ; its undeniable, un- 
doubted truth. Our belief of it does not make it true, 
nor does our disbelief of it make it false. The great 
Author of our nature has so constituted the mind, 
that where its moral bias is not corrupted and per- 
verted, there is nothing it more delights in than truth. 
Even in the meaner and less useful sciences, it has 
no such luxury as in the pursuit of truth. It is nar- 
rated of Archimedes, the celebrated mathematician 
of Syracuse, that during the war which raged be- 
tween Hiero and the Romans, he was not diverted 
from his contemplations even by the sacking of his 
native city, but was killed by a common soldier, 
while he was in the very act of meditating a mathe- 
matical theorem. I doubt not that you have often 
sympathized with the solicitude of this philosopher, 
and in some degree at least, participated in his 
ecstacy, in that intense pleasure which you have, 
almost insensibly as it were, derived from the pursuit 
and acquisition of truth. The thirsty clod, or drooping 
flower, is not more really refreshed, when it drinks 
the long-wished-for rain, than the eager and panting 
206 



MORAL SCIENCE. 207 

mind is refreshed and rejoices as she drinks her fill 
at some pure fountain of knowledge. It were grate- 
ful to know, did the acquisition only exalt and 
expand the mind ; but it is still more grateful when 
we recollect, that truth opens so many other sources 
of enjoyment ; enjoyment that is valuable, because 
it is pure and enduring, which never palls on the 
intellectual appetite, and which, the oftener it is 
repeated, is the more sure to be repeated without 
satiety. 

It is not every man who has the opportunity of 
augmenting these sources of enjoyment. Nature 
perhaps has denied him the talents, or the providence 
of God has withheld from him the means of extensive 
intellectual acquisition ; and therefore his mind is 
narrow, his faculties are degraded, his taste for plea- 
sure is uncultivated and coarse, and he is too apt to 
be dependent upon the gratifications of sense. Espe- 
cially have these remarks force, as they relate to the 
various branches of moral science. Men may be 
ignorant in very many departments of human know- 
ledge with comparative impunity; but there are 
subjects of intellectual research, in which every man, 
without distinction of rank and condition, has a deep 
and everlasting interest. A being who is the creature 
of account, and destined to immortality, whatever else 
he may forego, may not be ignorant of moral and 
religious truth. 

We have seen in the progress of these lectures, 
that the world is not a little indebted to the Bible 
for its advancement in various departments of human 
knowledge. But we should have very inadequate 
impressions of what we owe to this sacred volume, 
did we limit them by the information it communi- 
cates in the departments of human knowledge merely. 
The knowledge which most deeply interests us is that 

18 



208 INFLUENCE UPON 

which relates to the destinies of man as the creature 
of God and the heir of immortaUty. Other knowledge 
has principal reference to the present world, and ter- 
minates with the present life ; this refers to the soul, 
and is lasting as eternity. 

We are scarcely aware how little the world knows, 
or ever has known of religious truth, for which it is 
not altogether indebted to this sacred book. We 
cannot indeed, form any distinct and just conception 
of the intellectual condition of our race, had the light 
of a supernatural revelation never shone upon our 
doubt and darkness. The present actual condition of 
those portions of the human family who are destitute 
of the Scriptures, degraded and dark as they are, 
does not furnish a faithful development of the still 
deeper and more profound darkness which would 
have rested on them, had the light of heavenly truth, 
instead of having been once enjoyed, and subsequently 
extinguished, never shone upon them. The design 
of this lecture, therefore, is to mark as clearly as we 
can in the compass of a single exercise, the influence 
of the Bible upon the researches and certainty of 
moral science. 

It has been customary witli a certain class of men 
to represent in glowing colours the powers of human 
reason; to eulogize and almost deify the intellectual 
faculties of man, and to give them so high a place as 
to dispense with the light of a supernatural revelation. 
Not a little has been said, and much better than we 
can say it, to dispel this illusion. Moral and religious 
truth is a field which the lights of reason have never 
explored, and unaided, can never explore. Under 
the direction of perfectly sanctified affections, she 
might indeed have been a safe and sure guide, so far 
as her limited powers could extend. Unfallen, she 
might discover the expressive indications of her 



MORAL SCIENCE. 209 

Maker's will and glory in his works and providence, 
and everywhere read his truth, "clearly seen, being 
understood by the things that are made." But the 
"gold has become dim, and the most fine gold is 
changed." Her once eagle eye is darkened and 
benighted. This once lofty intelligence is fallen, its 
vision dimmed, and its faculties weakened and per- 
verted. I do not know a more fruitful source of 
error than confidence in the undirected, and therefore 
misdirected, powers of the human mind in its inquiries 
after religious truth. It is the npairov ipsvSo;, the radical 
error of all false religions, and of every deviation 
from the true. It would seem that rationahsts have 
forgotten, or are unwilling to acknowledge the extent 
of man's apostasy. They have exalted the powers 
of human reason to an elevation known only to 
unfallen humanity, and have paid a reverence to its 
dictates which belongs only to the infinite and unerr- 
ing Intelligence. I do not hesitate to say, that the 
man who does not construct his theory of moral 
science upon the broad basis of human apostasy, and 
who is not deeply sensible that, at every step of his 
progress, he has to contend not only with a depraved 
heart and an erring conscience, but also with an 
understanding that is darkened and defiled, is sure to 
construct one that is visionary and wild. It is lament- 
able, that the age of extravagant encomium upon the 
intellectual powers of man has not ceased. Who, in 
a Christian audience, is not weary of these misplaced 
and ill-timed commendations ? What have the boasted 
powers of reason, unaided and unillumined by light 
from heaven, ever achieved ? AVhere are their splen- 
did victories over the empire of darkness ? What 
are the conclusions to which they have arrived, the 
results which they have adopted and defended ? 
After following them through all the intricacies and 



210 INFLUENCE UPON 

darkness of their labyrinthsj into what world of light 
do they conduct us? 

We cannot answer these inquiries Avithout taking a 
passing glance at some of the leading religious prin- 
ciples of pagan philosophers and more modern deists, 
and showing their utter insufficiency to answer the 
great ends of religion. Of the former we may truly 
say, that it is painful and even disgusting to contem- 
plate the ignorance of the most celebrated of their 
number on almost all moral and religious subjects. 
Their endless differences and inconsistencies upon 
topics which they conceived to be of the highest im- 
portance, were such, that one would think it impossible 
for themselves even, to have had any confidence in 
their own speculations. Such too was the immorality 
of their doctrines, that wherever they were believed 
they could not fail to exert a pernicious influence upon 
the opinions and practices of men. Some believed in 
the existence of a God ; others did not. Some were 
unitarians ; others were polytheists. Every country 
had its deities which differed from all others : some in 
the heavens ; some in the air ; some in the ocean ; 
some in the infernal regions ; while some were deified 
heroes and men. Every thing about their religion 
was dark, confused, and imperfect. As we have 
already seen, they were the grossest idolaters, and 
their religious rites were distinguished by all that is 
impure and cruel. They were utterly ignorant of any 
method of salvation, as well as any effectual means 
for the attainment of holiness. They had no definite 
notions of the end for which man was created, or of 
that in which his highest happiness consists. Of the 
resurrection of the body, they knew nothing, and were 
in a state of painful suspense concerning the immor- 
tality of the soul. They spoke of Elysium and Tar- 
tarus, but these were poetical fancies rather than any 



MORAL SCIENCE. 211 

just conception of the doctrine of reAvards and punish- 
ments. The insufficiency of their rehgion is every- 
where proved from its defective discoveries of the 
being and character of the only true God; from the 
absurdities of their worship ; from their ignorance of 
the true sources of human enjoyment; from their im- 
perfect rules of duty, and ineffectual motives to obe- 
dience ; from their utter darkness on the great subject 
of pardon for the guilty, and the utter powerlessness 
of their systems to arrest and subdue the power of 
moral corruption.* 

And what more has reason done for the pagans of 
modern, than for those of ancient times ? Pass through 
heathen lands ; visit the savage tribes of Africa and 
our own continent ; travel over Hindostan and China ; 
and you will see how little unaided reason can effect 
in discovering a system of religious truth. Sorcery, 
divination and magic ; the transmigration of souls into 
animals and vegetables after death ; endless supersti- 
tions and gross darkness, are the acknowledged cha- 
racteristics of their religion. There is indeed an im- 
posing mythology ; there is the grandeur of temples, 
the decoration of altars and priests, and idols ; there 
is the pomp of their ritual, and the gaiety of their fes- 
tivals ; while the awful tragedy is distinguished by 
nothing more certainly than the wild and wanton 
dance, the sanguinary procession, and the bones of 
men offered to their idol deities, bleaching under the 
arid sky. 

If you ascend somewhat higher than these degrada- 
tions of paganism, and enquire what reason has 
achieved among deistical philosophers, what do you 

* See these positions illustrated at length in Halyburton's En- 
quiry. The ablest dissertation I have met with on this general 
topic is from the pen of the late Dr. John M. Mason, entitled "Hints 
on the Insufficiency of the Light of Nature." 
IS* 



212 INFLUENCE UPON 

find but systems of materialism and irresponsibility, 
a world uncaused and ungoverned ; a deity who is 
neither wise, nor good ; conceptions that are obscure 
and unsatisfying ; and systems of dark uncertainty and 
unhinging scepticism that agitate, without convincing 
the mind ? Deism, it is to be hoped, has seen its best 
days. From the early part of the seventeenth cen- 
tury, when a few men in France and Italy began to 
form themselves into a society for the purpose of pro- 
pagating the doctrines of pure Theism in opposition 
to Christianity, down to the latter part of the eight- 
eenth century, when so many distinguished minds 
both on the continent of Europe and in Great Britain, 
rejected the gospel under a pretence of veneration for 
the one true God, human reason made its best, and 
probably its last efforts in favour of natural religion. 
And yet nothing more clearly distinguishes this system 
than that it professes to be no system. It acknowledges 
the existence of God ; professes to follow the hght and 
law of nature, and rejects all divine revelation. With 
this standard it seemed for a while to be marching 
through the world, and because it quieted the minds 
of men in sin, multiplied its converts without inquiry 
and without conviction. But it was destined to over- 
throw itself. It was never any thing better than a 
refined sort of paganism. Nor had it indeed half the 
conscience, or half the stability of paganism itself At 
first it was pure Theism, or natural religion ; then it 
became bold infidelity ; then materialism ; then scepti- 
cism : then it denied a providence, and then a God. 
Reason became its deity : there was no God but 
reason. And now, for the first time elevated to the 
throne of the universe, reason began to be alarmed for 
her own safety, and resolved that there was a God. 
And then she began to tread her way back to the 
Bible. There, and there only does she discover tiie 



MORAL SCIENCE. 213 

God whom the understanding dehghts in, and at whose 
authority conscience bows. It is a remark worthy of 
being remembered, that " however deists may deride 
and scoff at the Bible, it is a fact capable of the clear- 
est proof, that had it not been for the Scriptures, there 
would not at this time be such a thing as pure Theism 
u])on earth. There is not now in the world an indi- 
vidual who believes in one infinitely perfect God, 
whose knowledge of this truth may not be traced 
directly, or indirectly to the Bible."* 

There is another fact which is enough to wean our 
confidence from the more arrogant claims of human 
reason ; I mean its utter failure in the great depart- 
ment of intellectual philosophy. Employing, as this 
department has done, some of the most erudite and 
powerful minds, its whole history has furnished melan- 
choly indications of the blindness and uncertainty of 
that dependence which men have placed in their own 
intellectual powers. Though giant minds have grap- 
pled with the theme with all their freshness and vigour, 
what has been more fluctuating than the principles 
of this science from the days of the schoolmen down 
to the time of Reid, Stewart and Brown ? Who now 
confides in the visionary system of Malebranche ; in 
the notions of Locke, with respect to the origin of our 
ideas ; or in the idealism of Berkeley and Collier ? 
Who believes in the annihilation both of the world of 
matter and of mind, as advocated by Hume ; in the 
monads of Leibnitz ; in the vibrations and associations 
of Hartley ; in the negations of Kant ; or in the tran- 
scendentalism of Coleridge and Cousin ? And yet. 
which of these systems has not, in its turn, been 
extolled as the sublimest effort of human genius, and 
sharing honour with the most important improve- 

* Evidences of Christianity by A. Alejander D. D. 



214 INFLUENCE UPON 

ments in human knowledge ? Aside from the few 
principles of intellectual philosophy which are obvi- 
ously deducible from the Scriptures, what evidence 
have we that a single half century will not witness an 
entire revolution in this important science ? How 
little confidence then is to be placed in the vaunted 
powers of human reason ? If she has learned so little 
in the science of mind, how much less will she learn 
in the science of religion ? If her fairest systems of 
mental philosophy are so undetermined and changing, 
what can she accomplish in framing and building up 
a fair and stable system of moral and religious truth ! 

It is no difficult matter, therefore, to discover the 
appropriate influence of the Bible upon the researches 
and certainty of moral science. It is just the influence 
that is needed. It is paramount to every other ; is 
extensive as the wants of the soul, and the sphere 
of religious truth ; is perfect and can receive no acces- 
sions. It illumines where men are ignorant, and 
decides and establishes where reason hesitates, and 
our minds are in doubt and uncertainty. Let us con- 
template it a single moment in these two aspects. 

In the first place, it extends the sphere of moral 
science. It reveals all truth. It keeps back nothing 
that is best for a fallen creature to know. An intelli- 
gent child of six years of age, educated in the bosom 
of a Christian family, knows more on moral and re- 
ligious subjects than Socrates or Plato. We are 
scarcely aware of the vast extent and compass of 
religious truth with which the Scriptures are so per- 
fectly familiar. We listen to their instructions so 
frequently, that the thought is not always present to 
our minds, that they are inculcating truths which none 
but God knows. They point us back to the eternity 
which the Creator inhabited before the foundation of 
the world, and forward to the eternity we shall inhabit 



MORAL SCIENCE. 215 

after this world shall have passed away. They lead 
our minds up to Him, who, though he dwells in light 
unapproachable and fills the universe is about our 
path and about our bed ; on whom all beings depend, 
from the archangel to the worm ; and who, while he 
is slow to anger and of great kindness, is terrible in 
majesty. They make us acquainted with his vast 
and perfect purposes, comprehending all his works 
and all the events of his providence in this world and 
other worlds, in time and through interminable ages. 
They direct our thoughts to the great law which he 
has published, and by which he establishes the moral 
order and harmony of the universe. They lead us to 
take a view of that world of wonders — man — a mys- 
tery to himself and yet more than all the works of 
God, the means of eliciting the manifold glory of his 
Maker. They proclaim to us the glad tidings of 
great joy through the incarnation and death, resurrec- 
tion, intercession, and mediatorial reign and triumph 
of the Son of God. They make us acquainted with 
the character and offices of the Divine Spirit, under 
whose transforming influence the soul is brought out 
of darkness into marvellous light, and though by 
nature guilty and impoverished, is enriched and 
adorned, and made meet to be a partaker of the in- 
heritance with the saints in light. They make us 
familiar with the import of momentous and melan- 
choly themes — death and the grave ; with the resur- 
rection both of the just and the unjust. They pour a 
light upon our path by which we descry the vast 
continent, the boundless immortality that stretches 
itself away immeasurably beyond our thoughts, and 
then lift the curtain where scenes and prospects rise 
that alternately appal and enchant us — the Son of 
man coming in the clouds of heaven ; the throne of 
judgment ; the final sentence ; the everlasting retribu- 



216 INFLUENCE UPON 

tion. How long would human reason have been 
clouded in mist, how long have groped in darkness, had 
not the light dawned that has made such disclosures ? 
He who knows all things, and sees as clearly at mid- 
night as at noon day, not only becomes the light of 
reason, but even condescends to reveal to faith what 
our limited and imperfect reason may not in many 
instances comprehend. His intelligence is everlasting ; 
he is the centre of thought, the law of all laws, and 
the last and supreme reason of all things. It belongs 
to him to originate and reveal the truths we are to 
receive 5 and even though they may not be compre- 
hended by us, yet are they all clear and plain to him. 
Let the man who thirsts for knowledge, who is 
wearied in his pursuit of truth, and who feels dis- 
satisfied with all that reason has ever taught him, 
repair to the Scriptures and see how fast he will learn 
under such a teacher. What amazing resources does 
he possess, when he becomes the possessor of the 
Bible ! What an ocean of knowledge does he carry 
in the hollow of his hand when he grasps that sacred 
book ! What uncreated wisdom seems then to be 
contained within the limits of his finite intelligence ! 
When once a mind eager in the pursuit of knowledge 
begins in earnest to learn from this book of God, it 
continually advances. There are no limits to these 
exhaustless instructions. As the intellectual powers 
and faculties expand and brighten by thought and 
prayer, as sinister and unworthy ends are lost sight 
of and superseded by the more steady and unalloyed 
love of the truth, the sphere of vision is enlarged ; one 
degree of attainment facilitates the acquisition of 
another ; the more is known, the greater will be the 
capacity of knowing, till light is poured upon the 
hitherto benighted mind from every opened page, and 
it increases in the knowledge of God till it beholds 
him as he is. 



MORAL SCIENCE. 217 

But the Scriptures do not merely extend the limits 
of moral science. In the second place, they fix its 
certainty. They reveal nothing as the object of con- 
jecture, but every thing as of absolute knowledge. 
The truths they disclose are not matters of opinion ; 
they are facts, facts ascertained by the God only wise, 
and the reality of which depends on his veracity 
speaking in his word. There is no foundation in the 
nature of things, for uncertainty in moral, more than 
in natural, or mathematical science. Every thing 
which men perceive, and about which they think and 
reason, is either certainly true, or certainly false. 
Independent of all our views and the views of 
others, distinct from all the notions we derive from 
custom and education, irrespective of all our caprice, 
prejudice, and ignorance, there is such a thing as 
religious truth. There is, in the nature of the case, 
no ground for doubt and uncertainty. Though not 
decided by the same kind of evidence by which we 
resolve an equation, or demonstrate a theorem, or 
determine the nature and causes of disease, it is not 
on that account the less certain. Where miinite in- 
telligence and integrity bear witness, there can be no 
room for uncertainty. All farther inquiry is out of 
place. One declaration of the God of truth is para- 
mount to all the philosophical theories, and all the 
opposing systems of faith the world ever beheld. It 
is amusing to hear some modern religionists talk 
about a more rational religion than the rehgion of the 
Bible ! What can be more rational than the wisdom 
of God? '■^ Who hath been his counsellor, and who 
hath instructed him?'^ A suffering, but godly man, 
was once asked if he could see any reason for the 
dispensation which caused him so much agony. 
^' No ;" replied he, "but I am as well satisfied as if I 
could see ten thousand. God's will is the very per- 



218 INFLUENCE UPON 

fection of all reason." So of the revelations of his 
truth. They are the perfection of all reason. The 
reason that is opposed to them is not reason, but 
folly. We need not be surprised, therefore, that the 
Scriptures claim for themselves certain knowledge ; 
for how can it be otherwise, since they come from 
God } Nor should it be any matter of surprise to us 
that those who truly receive the Bible should regard 
it as an unerring standard, and be established in its 
truths. " Lord, to whom shall we go, but unto thee ? 
Thou hast the words of eternal life ; and we believe 
and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the 
living God !" Men who love the Bible, know that it 
is true. They have not merely learned to bow their 
understanding to the decisions of infinite wisdom, 
but they have felt its power. Its truths accord with 
iheir own experience. They perceive their excellence 
and beauty. They have felt them ; they have handled 
them •, they have tasted and enjoyed them : and those 
wants of the soul which have so long been mocked, 
and deluded, and unrelieved, have found in these truths 
that satisfaction and peace which have elsewhere been 
sought in vain. " Do not wonder," says the devout 
Pascal, " to see some unsophisticated people believe 
without reasoning. God incUnes their hearts to be- 
lieve. They judge by the heart, as others do by the 
understanding. The Holy Scripture is not a science 
of the understanding, but of the heart. It is intelli- 
gible only to those who have an honest and good 
heart. Charity is not only the end of the Holy 
Scriptures, but the entrance to them." Men who are 
born of God, are begotten through the truths of the 
Bible ; they are, as it were, born into them, and they 
form the aliment of their spiritual being. They have 
had access to the tree once guarded by flaming cheru- 
bim ; they have plucked its fruit, have breathed its 



MORAL SCIENCE. 219 

fragrance and perfume, and know indeed that it is the 
tree of Hfe. 

Nor is it a consideration of Uttle moment, that the 
Scriptures fix the certainty of rehgious truth. Few 
principles are of higher importance than that truth, 
so far as it is attained, can be known with certainty. 
It is one thing to be on the whole persuaded, and 
another to be assured. It is one thing to view a pro- 
position undulating between the different gradations 
of probability, and established only by the prepon- 
derance of probabilities ; and another to consider 
truth beyond the influence of a doubt. If, after 
patient investigation, there were few subjects but may 
be unsettled by a corrupt philosophy ; if, after a 
laborious, impartial, and prayerful study of the Scrip- 
tures, it were impossible to arrive at any other 
conclusion than conjecture, we might well feel our- 
selves involved in " an horror of great darkness.'' I 
cannot easily conceive of a more painful state of mind. 
Perhaps, indeed, there is no feeling in the human 
bosom so distressing as suspense and uncertainty, be 
the subject what it may. Man needs firm ground 
whereon to place his feet, and not the marsh or quick- 
sand, that trembles beneath him. He has a singular 
power to brace his courage to a level with his condi- 
tion, and to endure with fortitude those evils which, 
before their arrival, seemed almost insupportable. 
But a state of hesitation between hopes and fears is, 
if possible, more tormenting than the fulfilment of his 
worst apprehensions. The haunting fear, the agony 
of suspense, prostrate his energy ; and to escape 
these, he often leaps to grapple with the dread reali- 
ties. Where then can be imagined a more dreadful 
state of mind than one of uncertainty as to the most 
important and vital moral subjects ? Is there such a 
being as God ? Is there a future state of immortal 

19 



220 INFLUENCE UPON 

existence ? Is there pardon for the guilty ? At what 
rate shall we estimate the misery of the mind that 
ponders upon these momentous questions with doubt 
and uncertainty ? To hang over the deep current 
into which generations have sunk, while the eye finds 
nothing but darkness, nor even a ripple which shows 
the spot where they disappeared ; to lean over the 
abyss to see whether perhaps it might discover some 
faint outline of the world beneath ; whether some 
gloomy echo, or some response of joy, some sound of 
mourning, or some song of praise, shall tell the dread- 
ful mystery ; what indescribable anxiety is this ! But 
not thus is it with men who have the Bible. From 
these unerring pages speaks a voice that is echoed 
back from every bosom of the living, every tomb and 
monument of the dead. If every thing were con- 
jecture elsewhere, here every thing is certainty. We 
know now the value and the true business of life. 
And if we are misled and perplexed by the shadows 
of uncertainty, it is because we " love darkness," 
and prefer to trace our dubious, hesitating course, 
under the dim torchlight of reason, to being led by 
that book which eternal wisdom has revealed to be a 
" hght to our feet and a lamp to our path." 

But you will ask me. Has human reason no place 
in the pursuits of moral science ? She has a definite 
and definable place. It is her province to ascertain 
that there is a God, and that he is a being of infinite 
power, knowledge and rectitude. It is her province 
to ascertain that he is able to make a revelation of 
his will to men, and with such evidence of its reality 
that she can believe and know that it comes from him. 
It is her province to inquire and judge whether the 
persons who speak in his name were truly sent by 
him, and to become assured that what they have 
spoken and written is in sober verity his own word. 



MORAL SCIENCE. 221 

It is her province to look at the difficultieSj and weigh 
well all the objections, to the plenary inspiration of 
the sacred volume ; and to be the more severe in her 
scrutiny because this volume claims to be the only in- 
fallible rule of faith and practice. Nor does her pro- 
vince terminate here. While it belongs not to her to 
erect herself into a tribunal before which the truth of 
God must appear to be judged, it at the same time 
belongs to her to inquire and ascertain what this 
divinely inspired book contains. This she must do 
diligently, humbly, and with becoming meekness. 
Having ascertained that this is the book of God, she 
may task all her powers and all her learning, and 
what is more, all her fairness and candour, to ascer- 
tain the true sense and import of the sacred writers. 
Her views of religious truth she must draw directly 
from the Scriptures. She is not merely to call in the 
aid of the Bible in confirmation of her own opinions, 
but to begin her investigations with this divine source 
of knowledge. The evidence of the truth she receives 
is the divine testimony, and she has nothing to do but 
ascertain and receive it. She may not interfere, nor 
hesitate, where the God of truth has decided. Her 
business is to stand a silent inquirer at the shrine of 
these oracles, and there hear what God the Lord hath 
spoken. Her object is to get at their philosophy, and 
not her own. She must take leave of her lofty inde- 
pendence and dignity, if she would learn of Christ. 
Her philosophical speculations have nothing to do in 
ascertaining the meaning of the Scriptures. Nor can 
we give too great emphasis to this thought. Men are 
very apt, where they have any fixed views of the 
laws which regulate mind, to look at God's truth 
through the medium of their own philosophy. If for 
example, God declares that the human race are sin- 
ners from their birth, they hesitate at such a statement, 



222 INFLUENCE UPON 

because according to their received opinions, the in- 
fantile mind is not capable of sin. If God declares 
that the moral renovation of men is effected by his 
own mighty power, they call in question this decision, 
because, according to their philosophy, the mind is an 
existence which is incapable of being acted upon ex- 
cept by light and motives. Instead of allowing the 
Bible to influence their -philosophy, they allow their 
philosophy to become the arbitrary interpreter of the 
Bible. Instead of submitting their judgments to the 
decisions of the uncreated intelligence, they require 
that his inteUigence should be subordinate to their 
own. There are few Christian divines that have not 
to some extent fallen into this error. This was emi- 
nently the error of Origen, of Cocceius, of Hutchinson, 
and of S wedenborg. This is the error of the Pelagians 
and Arminians of ancient and modern times. This is 
the error also to some extent of the Calvinistic and 
Hopkinsian schools. Nay, this is the error of the 
most of us, heterodox and orthodox. Strange to say, 
we cannot forbear inweaving the shreds of our own 
philosophy with the wisdom of God. We do it in- 
sensibly. But human reason was never given to man 
for such a purpose. When she has ascertained the 
true import of God's revelation, her work is done. To 
attempt more than this, is rebellion against God, nay 
it is rebellion against herself; for reason decides, and 
decides intuitively, that "if we believe the testimony 
of man, the testimony of God is greater." It has been 
well remarked, that " periods in which the pride of 
philosophy has been most exalted, have often been 
distinguished for the widest departures from the sim- 
plicity of Scriptural theology." Human reason is 
never so truly in her proper place as when she sits a 
learner at the feet of Christ. How can she soar on a 
loftier wing than when she flies so near the Sun as to 



MORAL SCIENCE. 223 

veil her face and lose her vision in the brightness of 
his rays ? It is not reason that guides the soul then, 
but God. It is a heavenly Hght, a guide from a purer 
and more intellectual world. It is reason, but not her 
own, a reason that never hesitates, never toils, and 
never becomes weary ; a reason that is never preju- 
diced, partial or benighted, and that never errs. 

We think it therefore, no small commendation of 
the Bible, that it is the only book that has opened to 
the world the extended field of moral science, and so 
marked and limited the path of human inquiry, that 
if the mind wanders, it can never be said that it is for 
want of light. Few truths come to us with such over- 
powering evidence, as the truths of the Bible. The 
cheerless gloom which broods over the understandings 
of men had never been chased away, but for the 
beams of this supernatural revelation. Men may look 
with an unfriendly eye on that system of truth which 
reproves and condemns them ; while they little know 
the loss the world would sustain by subverting its 
foundation. We have tried paganism ; we have tri^d 
Mohammedanism; we have tried deism and philosophy ; 
and " we cannot look upon them even with respect." 
The Scriptures contain the only system of truth which 
is left us. If we give up these, we have no other to 
which we can repair. We must travel back under 
the faint and trembling lights of reason and nature, 
where " darkness covers the earth and gross darkness 
the people." We must wander amid the regions of 
fancy and scepticism, where there is no argument to 
convince, and no oracle to decide. Every thing we 
see, and hear, and feel, becomes more and more the 
source of solicitude and apprehension, and the farther 
we extend our views, unless guided by this heavenly 
light, we behold only a vaster desert, a deeper abyss 
of doubt, darkness and despair. 
19 * 



224 INFLUENCE UPON MORAL SCIENCE. 

Between reflections upon ourselves, and reflections 
upon God 5 between just views of his character and 
our own, we see no ground for hope. We are bur- 
thened with a sense of our sin, misery, and darkness, 
and long in vain for some quiet resting place, some 
covert from the tempest, some shadow of a great 
rock in this weary land ; something which has "the 
promise of the life that now is, and that which is to 
come." We strive to break our bondage, but every 
struggle binds us faster in our chains, and is only the 
ineffectual efl'ort of a mind separated from God, to 
restore by its own wisdom its lost fellowship with its 
Maker. We counsel you therefore to cleave to this 
unerring word of God. And we counsel you not to be 
satisfied with mere intellectual attainments. A mere 
intellectual acquaintance with the Bible is not godli- 
ness. They know too much of religion, far too much 
for their future comfort, who know more than they 
obey. We claim for the Bible and for the truth it 
inculcates, not only the submission, the admiration of 
jbur understanding, bat the submission and admira- 
tion of your heart. Ah, my young friends, where 
else can you find a moment's repose, when you have 
once cast away your confidence in the instructions of 
God's word ? Cast away this confidence, and there 
is a chasm before you which nothing can fill — an 
abyss, across which your dark, uncomforted minds 
throw their anxious glance, and feel that all their 
light and hopes are extinguished. You would won- 
der why you had been created with such insatiable 
desires after truth, such a thirst for the knowledge of 
God, and yet could find nothing to gratify them. Nor 
would this inquietude ever pass away, until you had 
returned to the Bible. The sundered bond would 
then be made whole ; the separating chasm filled ; 
the darkness dissipated ; the agitated, despairing mind 
at peace. 



LECTURE X. 

THE PRE-EMINENCE OF THE BIBLE IN PRODUCING 
HOLINESS ANB TRUE RELIGION. 

We have just turned our attention to the influence 
of the Bible upon the extent and certainty of moral 
science. We advance this evening a step beyond 
speculations like these, however momentous. We 
look at man not as the creature of intellect and thought 
merely, but as the creature of feeling, of moral sensi- 
bility and affection : and we look at the Bible not 
merely as exerting an influence upon his intellectual, 
but upon his active and moral powers, and forming 
the only character by which he becomes fitted for the 
presence and enjoyment of God his Maker. We here 
take our leave of those happy influences which this 
wonderful book exerts upon the learning and litera- 
ture of the world ; upon its laws and liberties ; upon 
its social institutions and moral virtues, as well as 
upon the mere intellectual sphere of religious truth. 
And may I not hope that God will incline your hearts 
to accompany me with the same interest with which 
you have accompanied me thus far, though it be in 
inquiries more spiritual than those which have hitherto 
occupied our attention ? If the things of time alone 
absorb our thoughts ; if the present is that alone in 

225 



226 INFLUENCE UPON 

which we feel an interest while we are heedless of 
the future; then do we ourselves present melancholy- 
proof of that moral infatuation which has not yet 
learned to appreciate the Holy Scriptures. What 
does it profit a man, though " he have all knowledge/^ 
if he yet remains unacquainted with God ? ^' What is 
he profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose 
his own soul?" It is the cbown and glory of the 

BIBLE THAT IT IS THE ONLY MEANS OF HOLINESS AND 
TRUE RELIGION. 

A moment's reflection upon the nature and des- 
tinies of the human soul, will teach us that moral rec- 
titude alone can raise it to its true greatness. Were 
it possible for this great perfection to be detached 
from the character of God himself; were that divine 
Being, now so glorious, to be stripped of the "beauties 
of holiness ;" instead of being revered and loved, he 
would be the object of suspicion and fear, and could 
no longer be contemplated but with terror and dismay. 
The higher a being is in intellectual power, the more 
debased is he, and the more were he to be dreaded, 
were he destitute of holiness. Holiness constitutes 
the beauty, the loveliness of the intelligent nature, 
in whatever being, or whatever world it is found. 

Man is not by nature the friend of God. He has 
no inherent moral dignity, no native innocence, no 
natural meetness for heaven. Under every form of 
human society. Pagan, Jewish, Mohammedan and 
Christian, all are by nature the slaves of sin. There 
was a judicial connexion between the first offence of 
our progenitor, and the sin and condemnation of his 
posterity. "By the off'ence of one, judgment came 
upon all men to condemnation." It is a search too 
elevated for fallen men to acquaint themselves with 
God. There is no " contact of heart" between them 
and the great Father of spirits. No hours of leisure. 



TRUE RELIGION. 227 

no retirement to the closet, no silence of the dawn or 
evening, witnesses their aspirations after the " first 
Fair and the first Good." " God is not in all their 
thoughts," but is excluded alike from their toils, their 
recreations, and their joys. Nay, even in the pensive- 
ness and agony of their sorrows, how few are there 
who say, " Where is God my Maker, that giveth 
songs in the night .?" How immense the distance, 
how deep the chasm between fallen man and the 
Holy One ! The mind, the heart, the will, bound 
together by common bonds, acting and reacting upon 
one another by a thousand unseen and uncontrolled 
influences, were all combined in the unhallowed, the 
treasonable revolt ! 

And how can such a being become holy ? By what 
instrumentality is a creature thus apostate to be re- 
stored to the image of his Maker ? By what agencies 
is he to be prepared for that world whose blessedness 
consists in deliverance from sin, and in the perfect and 
everlasting enjoyment of its great Author and glory ? 
What is the starting point, and what the impulse 
under which so degraded, benighted, depraved a being 
enters upon this new moral career ? How shall he 
begin, in that growing transformation of character 
which in itself constitutes one of the chief elements of 
salvation, and one of the principal elements of the 
heaven where God dwells ? Is it by the doctrines of 
human philosophy ? Is it through the influence of 
good government ? Is it by the power of false reli- 
gion ? Or is it only by the power of the Bible ? 

The view we have already taken of the pagan 
world shows nothing more clearly than that men have 
never become holy by the mere culture of the intel- 
lect. " Where is the wise ? Where is the disputer 
of this world ? Hath not God made foolish the 
wisdom of this world ?" Nothing is more definitely 



228 INFLUENCE UPON 

asserted in the word of God, or more fully and abun- 
dantly illustrated in the history of man, than that 
" the world by wisdom knew not God." However 
the mind may be improved by culture, expanded and 
refined by science, and elevated by the moralizing in- 
fluence which mere human agency may supply ; there 
still remains a melancholy, nay, an invincible tendency 
to evil. The alienation of the heart, does not arise 
from intellectual imbeciUity, or intellectual ignorance. 
The love of science is not the love of God. Religion 
is indeed not a little indebted to the researches of hu- 
man science ; but unhappily it is no uncommon thing 
for men endued with the most splendid genius and the 
most liberal acquisitions in human science, to be dis- 
tinguished for depravity of heart. True religion is 
not a mere intellectual theory, a philosophic system ; 
nor does a man become the disciple of Christ in the 
same way in which he becomes the disciple of Plato, 
or Newton. Never was a lesson more effectually taught 
by the experience of our race, than that intellectual 
culture cannot produce holiness. * The learning of the 
Scribes and Pharisees did not prevent them from re- 
jecting the Saviour ; but rather qualified and tempted 
them to stand forth his malignant and infuriate op- 
posers. The absurdities of a debased pagan ritual, 
were never confined to the ignorant and uninformed. 
Socrates and Seneca, Solon and Lycurgus, bowed at 
the altars of Jupiter and Apollo. Idolatry erected her 
temples amid the groves of the Academy, and pub- 
lished her sanguinary and licentious code amid all the 
light and learning of the Augustan age. No instance 
is to be found where a nation, or an individual, ever 
became the friend of God through the influences of 
mere intellectual cultivation. At the period when our 
blessed Lord came into the world, intellect had made 
its highest efforts ; philosophy had exhausted all her 



TRUE RELIGION. 229 

vigour and acuteness ; Greece and Rome had furnish- 
ed the most splendid examples of reasoning and elo- 
quence, examples so splendid, that next to the Bible, 
they remain to the present day, the acknowledged 
standards of elegance and power ; and yet they left 
the world "without God and without hope," and full 
of that " unrighteousness and ungodliness of men," 
against which " wrath is revealed from heaven." 
What has intellectual culture done for modern Europe ? 
What has it done for France, the glory of all lands for 
purely intellectual and philosophical research ? There 
is not a combination of more learned, or acute men on 
the earth, than the Royal Academy at Paris. Nor is 
there probably anywhere to be found a society of 
men more ignorant of God and holiness. 

Nor will the institutions of civil government make 
men holy. Civil government may restrain the out- 
breaking of human corruption ; may prevent lawless 
aggressions upon the welfare of society ; may deter 
the abandoned from injustice and oppression ; and 
while it is " a terror to evil doers," may be '*• a praise 
to those who do well ;" but it can never win back the 
heart of man to God. What civil government can do 
for men, it has done already. It does not make men 
holy in the best governed Christian states. It does 
not in Britain ; it does not among ourselves. It did 
not in the best governed republics and empires of the 
pagan world. Not even Antoninus Pius could influ- 
ence Rome to be either holy or virtuous. All the 
legislative science and political advancement which 
rendered Athens and Sparta the models of their age, 
could not rescue them from a superstitious polytheism. 
Legislators as well as philosophers, have failed, and 
always will fail to regenerate the heart. No matter 
how wise and equal the laws ; no matter what prin- 
ciples of government, or modes of legislation may be 



230 INFLUENCE UPON 

adopted and enforced ; no matter with how'much skill 
the affairs of princes are adjusted ; none of these things 
convey the knowledge of holiness and salvation. It 
is an instructive fact, that while pagan nations were 
advancing from one degree of literary and civil refine- 
ment to another, their religious character sunk in pro- 
gressive, if not in proportioned degeneracy. Not 
merely did it retain its uncultivated barbarism, but 
waxed worse with every accession of human wisdom. 
From the most exalted, or rather the least debasing 
system, that of sidereal worship, it descended to 
" images, made like to corruptible man, and to birds, 
and to four-footed beasts, and to creeping things." 
Never did it reach a lower abyss of degradation, than 
when heathen lands had attained their acme of civili- 
zation and learning. And in a state thus abject did it 
continue " even under the Ptolemies in Egypt, and 
the Caesars in Rome,'^ till " the fulness of time was 
come when God sent forth his Son." 

Have then men ever become holy through the in- 
fluence of false religions ? Not certainly by paganism, 
as we have already seen. The Persians and Moham- 
medans have, it must be confessed, made some 
advances in an apparent moral rectitude beyond the 
abject wickedness of purely pagan lands. The Per- 
sians were the descendants of Elam, the son of Shem ; 
and with the rest of the nations early fell away in 
their apostasy from the worship of the true God. 
The purity of their faith was revived in the time of 
Abraham, but was corrupted again before the Baby- 
lonish captivity. It was revived again by Zoroaster, 
who maintained that there is one supreme God, and 
a general resurrection and retribution to all according 
to their deeds. But while the Persian religion for 
centuries held its sway over a multitude of minds, it 
never made men holy. "The Persians/' says Sis- 



TRUE RELIGION. 231 

mondi in his History of the Downfall of the Roman 
Empire, " had laws emanating from despotic power, 
which preserve order, but which secure to a nation 
neither justice, nor happiness. They had that hterary 
culture which feeds the imagination, but does not 
enlighten the understanding. Their religion and their 
aversion to idolatry, satisfied the reason, but did not 
purify the heart." It is also worthy of remark, that 
for all that is venerable in antiquity and purity, the 
Persian religion was indebted to the Bible. By those 
who are best informed in oriental literature, Zoroaster 
is represented to have been "cotemporary with 
Daniel, and if not a Jew, yet perfectly acquainted 
with the Jewish Scriptures."* Nor is it less true that 
all that is valuable in the system of Mahomet was 
drawn from the Scriptures of the Old and New Tes- 
tament. Colonies of Jews were once scattered over 
Arabia, at a period when the religion of the Arabians 
was polytheism, and when there were three hundred 
and sixty idols in their principal temple at the Kaaba 
in Mecca. The character of Mahomet was austere ; 
his imagination ardent ; his temperance extreme ; and 
he was disposed to religious meditations and lofty 
reveries. His chief thought at first was to fix his 
own belief, and purify it from the superstitions of his 
country. He recognized as God an eternal Spirit, 
omniscient, omnipresent, and incapable of being repre- 
sented by any material image. He nourished this 
idea till the age of forty, when he resolved to become 
the reformer of his nation. He taught them the 
knowledge of the one God, but he called himself his 
Prophet. From the time he took this character, his 
life lost its purity, his temper its mildness, policy 
entered into his religion, and fraud into his conduct. 

*Pndeaux's Connexions, and Graves on the Pentateuch. 
20 



232 INFLUENCE UPON 

He dictated the Koran, for he could not read or write, 
and the subUmity of its language is to Mussulmans a 
proof of its inspired character. He admitted six 
revelations, — those of Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, 
Christ, and his own. The religion of Mahomet 
leaned toward fatalism, but did not deny the influence 
of the will in human actions. Nor did it consist in 
doctrines only, but in the practice of justice and 
charity. It considers alms-giving the most rigorous 
duty ; and the Koran exacts from a tenth to a fifth 
of a believer's income in charity. It enjoins prayer, 
abhUion and fastings. Five times a day, a Mussul- 
man must pray. Fasts were so rigid, that during the 
month of Hamadan, one might neither eat, nor drink, 
nor enjoy any gratification from sunrise to sunset. 
Before the time of Mahomet, the iVrabs enjoyed 
unbounded license ; and he forbade dissoluteness, 
only by reducing it within the bounds of expediency 
and law. The blood of their enemies was a sure 
passport to the Mohammedan Paradise. Every 
Mussulman, indeed, however bad, was sure of Para- 
dise, after expiating his sins a suitable time in purga- 
tory, not to exceed five thousand years. The most 
favourable exhibition of the religion of Mahomet 
shows its perfect powerlessness to form any thing 
like a spiritual character. We ha.ve spoken of its 
immoral tendencies in a previous lecture ; and it were 
the merest farce to claim for it any spiritual influence. 
We freely grant to these religions all they can claim ; 
and the most that can be said of them is, that they 
are not idolatrous. And if they have effected some- 
thing in supplantmg the existence of idolatry, nothing 
is more obvious than that their influence in this par- 
ticular is to be attributed to the Bible. Wherever 
indeed, men have ceased to bow down to the sun, 
moon and stars ; wherever they have ceased erecting 



TRUE RELIGION. 233 

pillars and statues on the tops of hills a,ncl mountains 
for the purpose of offering sacrifices to the host of 
heaven; wherever they have ceased erecting their 
temples, and their images, and offering their fruits to 
the light, the air, the wind, the fire, the water, the 
earth ; wherever they have renounced the grovelling 
superstition which led them to worship the darkness, 
the storm, the pestilence and the furies ; wherever 
they have no longer erected monuments to the 
memory of the dead, and worshipped creatures like 
themselves ; where they have abandoned their hom- 
age of animals and reptiles, birds and beasts, plants 
and herbs ; where the rivers and the woods are no 
longer peopled with imaginary deities ; where each 
favoured city and family has no longer its peculiar 
guardian gods; where the power of magic is no 
longer recognized, and the influence of oracles and 
augurs, of diviners and soothsayers has been re- 
nounced as idle and vain ; where it is no longer a 
proof of wisdom to attempt to disclose future events 
by the flight of birds, the recollection of dreams, 
and the inspection of the entrails of beasts ; we may 
say, without the fear of contradiction, that this change 
has been produced by the religion of the Bible. 
Reason has not done it. The institutions of civil 
government have not done it. Human science has 
not done it. The most fearful judgments have not 
done it. Nothing has done it but the Bible. But for 
the Bible, the vilest idolatry would at this hour hold 
its unbroken sway over the world. 

Where then had been the interests of holiness with- 
out the Bible ? Whatever estimate we may form of 
the value of other influences upon the human charac- 
ter, this alone is the means of holiness. I do not 
know but here and there an individual may be found, 
who may have become pious without the truths of the 



234 INFLUENCE UPON 

Bible ; but I do not recollect any well authenticated 
instance. " Faith cometh by hearing, and hearing 
by the word of God." The moral renovation which 
fits the soul for heaven is effected by means which 
correspond with its nature. " Of his own will begat 
he us with the word of truth." The Bible alone 
exhibits those appropriate materials for thought which 
are the selected instruments of a renovated character. 
There is no v/isdom more unerring, no justice more 
inflexible, no grace more tender, no authority more 
commanding, no entreaty more importunate, no in- 
structions more convincing, and no motives more per- 
suasive and powerful, than are these appointed means 
of man's conversion — these weapons which are 
"mighty through God" — this sword by which the 
conscience is penetrated, " dividing asunder heiween 
the joints and the marrow, the soul and the spirit, and 
proving a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the 
heart." 

There is one motive to holiness which the Bible 
unfolds which constitutes its great and distinguishing 
peculiarity. It is the love of God in the gift of his 
Son. All the motives to holiness are concentrated 
and condensed here, and presented and enforced with 
a power of thought and feeling that leave the most 
obdurate without excuse. " We beseech you by the 
mercies of God." Here lies the strength of the appeal. 
The love of God in Christ is the great expedient of 
winning the wayward heart. " Holy love from God 
to man is what the gospel reveals ; holy love from 
man to God is what the gospel inspires." The doc- 
trines of the cross, in all their richness and variety, in 
all their peculiarity and tenderness, and in all their 
humbling and abasing influence, possess a marvellous 
adaptation to awaken the slumbering mind. They 
produce within it new and powerful associations. 



TRUE RELIGION. 235 

While ill the most effective manner, they convince of 
sin, of righteousness, and of judgment, they touch all 
the springs of {eeling, and form the moral elements of 
the new man. No other truths so deeply affect the 
mind. " Nothing astonished me so much in all the 
gospel,'' said a poor converted African, "as to hear 
that God is love." A prouder and more obdurate 
offender than he, once said, " The love of Christ con- 
straineth us." It is the glory of the condescending 
Deity, that " He draws with the cords of love." 
When you tell a world that heth in wickedness, that 
the God they have offended is the God of pardons ; 
when you show them the scenes of Gethsemane and 
Calvary, and tell them how the divine justice has 
been expiated by the death of his Son ; while you give 
force and energy to every other truth, and draw around 
the conscience the cords of every other obligation, you 
make that appeal to gratitude, to hope, which is pecu- 
liarly fitted to encourage the trembling and move the 
obdurate. Like the rod of Moses it rives the rocks 
of the desert. Until the intelligence reaches it that 
there is help in the mighty Saviour, the agitated mind 
in vain throws around its enquiring glance for a refuge, 
and is driven back to the chambers of its own desola- 
tion and despondency. " God reconciling the world 
to himself by Jesus Christ," this is the glory of the 
Bible. This is the truth to which the Spirit of all 
grace has given such pre-eminence in disarming the 
hostile heart. Here is the concentrated light of God's 
revelation. Amid the thousand studded gems which 
beautify and give such splendour to the moral firma- 
ment, this is the clear and bright constellation which 
is always above the horizon, and pointing high toward 
the gate of heaven. Here are those truths and motives 
which are the mediate causes of a spiritual mind, and 
between which and the operations of the Holy Spirit 



236 INFLUENCE UPON 

there is such a coincidence, that they become the ali- 
ment of a spiritual and divine life. He who knows 
the heart of man has selected this as the best method 
of access to the minds he has formed ; and like every 
other appointment of the Deity, it is full of consum- 
mate wisdom. Every where the same, it is every 
where eflectual in accomplishing the purposes of eter- 
nal mercy. Evidence enough there is in the world 
every day, to convince us of the superiority of the 
Bible as the great means of holiness and salvation. 
And better days are yet to dawn. Like the rain and 
the snow, it shall not return void. Like the sun when 
he rises upon the mists of the ocean, it is destined to 
exhale all clouds of error. Its heavenly light shall 
penetrate the dark corners of our globe ; the report of 
its glad tidings, echoing from land to land, shall roll 
through the nations ; while " the heavens shall pour 
down righteousness, and the earth bring forth salva- 
tion." 

But there is a caution that is not out of place while 
speaking of the Bible as the means of holiness. If it 
is not by the learning and wisdom of this world that 
the soul is fitted for heaven, no more is it by the mere 
learning and literature of the Bible. There is reason 
to fear the cases are not few, in which the Bible is 
regarded more as a volume to be described and eulo- 
gized, and as furnishing topics of intellectual research, 
than as a directory to heaven, and a guide to immor- 
tality. " The letter killeth." Biblical learning is not 
piety. A man may be a profound critic, an acute 
controversialist, an able expositor; his enquiries and 
reasonings may discover an enlarged and comprehen- 
sive acquaintance with the sacred volume ; he may 
employ all his resources in the promotion of biblical 
knowledge ; and yet be at heart a stranger to the 
sanctifying power of truth. In his cold walks of theo- 



TRUE RELIGION. 237 

retical science, he may never once visit the garden or 
the cross. Or he might gaze upon them for half a 
century with his present vision, and never discover 
the great " mystery of godUness." The truths of the 
Bible are comprehended by the heart. To be desti- 
tute of the " single eye," is to be blind to its trans- 
forming glories. " He that loveth not, knoweth not 
God, for God is love." The gospel is a revelation of 
love. Christianity is love embodied in its purest form. 
And love can be comprehended only by love. I look 
upon no small portion of the biblical criticism of the 
present age as a curse to the church. Such is all the 
Rationalism of Germany, and such is the modern 
Unitarianism of our own land. It is a cheerless 
region, where the Rose of Sharon never blooms ; a 
bleak and wintry sky, where no ray from the Sun of 
righteousness visits the sterile soil. How can the 
branches flourish where not even a root is found but 
is artfully unclasped, or rudely torn from the living 
Vine ? As soon might you expect the feeblest infant 
to live and thrive cradled amid the mountain snows, 
as the genius of Christianity to flourish in such a clime. 
I tremble at recommending the literature of the Bible, 
lest I should do it at the expense of its spirituality. I 
venerate the Scriptures for their historical research, 
for their literary merit, for their legal and political 
wisdom, and for their lofty principles of liberty and 
morality ; but I venerate them unspeakably more, 
because they are " the wisdom of God and the power 
of God to salvation." Let others win the laurels to 
which human science may aspire ; be it ours to guide 
the wandering to the feet of the Saviour ; to lead them 
to his cross ; to strew the cypress over the tomb where 
he was laid ; and there on that hallowed spot, with 
them renew our faith and our devotion ! 

But what is the character of the religion of which 



238 INFLUENCE UPON 

the Scriptures are thus instrumental ? There is a 
beauty and sublimity in its spirit which throw all 
other religions into the shade. If there is a system 
of truth which is most obviously intended and fitted 
to refine and exalt the human character, that system 
is to be found in the sacred Scriptures. When the 
God of heaven unfolded his purpose of forming a 
people to his praise, and giving them a character that 
should correspond with the elevated principles of his 
own spiritual kingdom, he uttered his design in the 
following strong and emphatic language : " A new 
heart will I give you, and a new spirit will I put 
within you : and I will take away the stony heart out 
of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. 
And I will put my spirit within you." What amazing 
truths lie concealed under such a design ! The cha- 
racter which the Bible forms is formed upon the 
highest model. And what is that model ? Is it the 
insensibility, the asperities, the anger, the pride, the 
egotism, the worldliness which are so natural to men ? 
Is it the cold indiflerence of a Stoical philosophy ? Is 
it the affected tranquillity and ungoverned voluptuous- 
ness of the disciples of Epicurus ? Is it the rank, and 
wealth, and scepticism of the Academics ? Is it the 
intellectual rashness and moral phantoms of the 
modern philosophists of Europe ? No, it is none of 
these. These have had their day, and done what 
they could to exorcise the foul fiend from the human 
heart, and left it more corrupt and wicked than before. 
The Author of this great and venerated book, by this 
instrumentality, imparts to men his own spirit ; forms 
them in his own image ; communicates to them the 
elements of his own divine excellence. It is a charac- 
ter never understood by the world before, and one 
which none even of the princes of this world knew. 
The late celebrated Robert Hall, in a discourse of 



TRUE RELIGION. 239 

unrivalled excellence upon the influence of modern 
infidelity remarks, that "infidelity robs the universe 
of all finished and consummate excellence, even in 
idea. The admiration of perfect wisdom and goodness 
for which we are formed, and which kindles such 
unspeakable rapture in the soul, finding in the regions 
of scepticism nothing to which it corresponds, droops 
and languishes. The idea of Deity is composed of 
the richest elements. In the character of a benevo- 
lent Parent and almighty Ruler, it embraces what- 
ever is venerable in wisdom, whatever is awful in 
authority, whatever is touching in goodness. Human 
excellence is blended with many imperfections, and 
seen under many limitations. It is beheld only in 
detached and separate portions, nor ever appears in 
any one character whole and entire. So that when 
in imitation of the Stoics, we wish to form out of these 
fragments the notion of a perfectly wise and good 
man, we know it is a mere fiction of the mind, with- 
out any real being in whom it is embodied and realized. 
In the belief of a Deity, these conceptions are reduced 
to reality : the scattered rays of an ideal excellence are 
concentrated, and become the real attributes of that 
Being with whom we stand in the nearest relation, 
who sits supreme at the head of the universe, and per- 
vades all nature with his presence." Although in 
nothing does man, fallen and unregenerate, now resem- 
ble this exalted portrait, yet is it the great design of 
the Bible to recover and restore him to his pristine 
integrity ; to elevate him above his moral debasement, 
and re-invest him with the moral dignity, which shall 
ultimately make him " like unto the angels,'^ and 
" perfect as his Father in heaven is perfect." 

God is light. So is the religion of the Bible. It 
has no fellowship with darkness. Not one of its 
graces springs from stupidity, or ignorance, but all of 



240 INFLUENCE UPON 

them from the knowledge of God, and from a clear, 
connected, and comprehensive view of his truth. 
False religions are founded in darkness. The religion 
of the Bible, like its Author, dwells in light. Light 
is its element. God also is love. And so is the reli- 
gion of the Bible. " He that dwelleth in love, dwelleth 
in God, and God in him. He that loveth not, knoweth 
not God." There is a love which extends itself to 
every sensitive nature within its knowledge and influ- 
ence ; which overlooks the limits of place, birth, and 
condition, and bestows its aifections in accordance 
with the character, capacity and importance of its 
objects; which seeks not its own, and terminates 
on ends which leave out of sight every personal and 
individual interest : and such a spirit is the fragrance 
and perfume breathed every where through the Bible. 
The views and spirit of this world are widely 
different from the views and spirit that are transfused 
into the soul by the holy Scriptures. The spirit of 
the world is the spirit of pride and inordinate self- 
esteem. It is the pride of talent and beauty, the 
pride of wealth and accomplishments, and the pride 
of rank and office. It lives for the praise of men. In 
place of this, the Bible imparts the loveliest of all the 
graces, a heaven-born humility; a lowliness of mind; 
a deep sense of unworthiness in the sight of God ; a 
modest estimate of one's own worth, and an unassum- 
ing deportment before the Avorld. It is a self-con- 
demning, self-abasing spirit under the sentence of the 
divine law because we have sinned, and because 
there is mercy through Jesus Christ. It is a grace so 
resplendent, that even the unfallen might envy it. 
" Before honour is humility." The Bible commends 
an humble religion. Its love is humble ; its faith is 
humble ; its repentance is humble ; its hopes, its joys, 
its raptures are all humble. Its heaven is humble, 



TRUE RELIGION. 241 

and for nothing is it so happy or desirable as that it 
is a world of everlasting humility. True greatness is 
nowhere found on earth, except in an humble mind. 
And never is the archangel more elevated, more truly 
great, than when he bows his head low before the 
eternal throne. The spirit of the world is obduracy 
and self-will. It is invincible hardness of heart. It 
is impenitence that cannot be subdued. It is inflexible 
perseverance in sin. Truth cannot enlighten it : 
authority cannot control it ; wrath cannot break, nor 
the tenderest mercy move or melt its persisting pur- 
pose. In place of this, the Bible imparts tenderness 
and contrition of mind. Under its soul-subduing 
influence, the spirit that never shrunk from danger, 
nor wept under suflering, turns pale at temptation, 
shrinks from sin, weeps over past follies, and looks 
on Him whom men have pierced, and mourns. The 
spirit of the world is grasping and covetous. It is 
inordinately desirous of wealth, and excessively eager 
to obtain and possess the treasures of time. It is 
gay, or pensive, as secular prospects wax, or wane. 
It is stagnant and spiritless, only when it sees there 
is nothing to gain, or to lose by enterprise. Be it 
disappointed or gratified, the more vehement are its 
desires, and never is it so satisfied as to say. It is 
enough. In place of this, the Bible imparts a tranquil 
and happy confidence in the wisdom of Divine Provi- 
dence, a grateful acknowledgment of the daily mer- 
cies which God bestows, a moderation in those 
desires which are directed to worldly enjoyments, 
and that lifted eye which no longer fastens on earth, 
but looks upward, where its resources are undi- 
minished, its treasures never fade, and a crown of 
righteousness awaits all who love their Lord's appear- 
ing. The spirit of the world is the spirit of ambition. 
It is the desire of power. The object that glitters^ 



242 INFLUENCE UPON 

and enchants, and vanishes, is to be clothed in purple, 
to sway the sceptre, and wear the diadem. And the 
more this ambitious desire is gratified, the more is 
poison injected into the deadly plague. In place of 
this, the Bible imparts a deep impression of the vanity 
of all things beneath the sun ; a conviction that the 
fashion of this world passeth away ; that the yoke of 
Christ is more to be desired than the proudest scep- 
tre ; and that it were better to be the servant of the 
King of kings, than the emperor of the world. The 
spirit of the world is the spirit of self-indulgence and 
guilty pleasure. The men of the world are lovers of 
pleasure more than lovers of God. Like the prodigal 
son, they have wandered from their Father's house, to 
feed on the husks of the wilderness. They are eager 
for enjoyment, and find it in dissipation of thought, 
of feeling, and of deportment, and amid the alternate 
servitude and liberty, pains and pleasures which 
constitute their varied adventures. Their senses are 
flattered by the fleeting illusion, and they can speak 
of nothing, and think of nothing, but pleasure. 
Though made up of so many pieces and scraps, that 
you wonder they are not wearied in gathering it up, 
yet have they no other desire and no other object. 
Lawless pleasure, in all the forms of novelty and 
excess, notwithstanding its shame, its infamy, its ruin, 
is the idol of their hearts and the law of their exist- 
ence. In place of this, the Bible imparts the love of 
God and duty. Pleasures it reveals, but they are 
found in doing the will of God ; in accomplishing the 
great end of human existence, and in those vivid 
hopes which light up the dawn, and noon-day, and 
setting sun of an ever brightening existence. Those 
who have drunk into its spirit do not live for the 
pleasures of earth, but are carried forward by a sort 
of spiritual instinct, beyond this dense and earthly 



TRUE RELIGION. 243 

wall by which they are environed. The Bible pre- 
sents a prospect as much brighter and wider than the 
pleasures of the worldling, as are the pleasures of 
holy thought and feeling and expectation, superior to 
the day dreams, and grovelling pleasures of sense. 
The spirit of the world is the spirit of unbelief. It is 
the spirit that rejects the truth of God ; that has no 
confidence in his declarations, and distrusts his pro- 
mises and faithfulness. It leans to self. It has no 
wants, timidity, or despondency, which its own pre- 
sumption cannot relieve. And not until corruptions 
have kept their ground so long as to be absolutely 
ruinous, and the day of hope so far spent as to be 
literally exhausted, does the soul that is under the 
dominion of unbelief, cry, and cry in vain, " Lord, 
save, or I perish !" In place of this, the Bible im- 
parts faith in God and confidence in his word. It 
gives an affectionate, practical trust in the divine 
testimony as recorded on its own sacred pages, and 
that unshaken confidence in the divine character, 
government, and veracity, which becomes the great 
principle and impulse of action. It gives subsistence 
to hope and demonstration to evidence ; and while it 
appropriates grace to help in every time of need, it 
anticipates blessings, which, though unseen by the 
eye, are enjoyed by the heart. The spirit of the world 
is an unforgiving and revengeful spirit. It seeks 
injury for injury, and blood for blood. What a 
mournful comment upon the character of man is the 
savage maxim, "Revenge is sweet !'^ In place of 
this, the Bible enjoins, " Love your enemies ; bless 
them that curse yovi ; do good to them that hate you ; 
and pray for them which despitefully use you and 
persecute you." This is a spirit so unnatural to man, 
that it has been reproached as unreasonable and 
absurd, and the ancients had not even a word to 

21 



244 INFLUENCE UPON 

express it, or if they had, it represented it as a vice 
rather than a virtue. But how worthy of its Author ! 
how sublime ! how truly it bears the stamp of divi- 
nity ! The wisest moralists of the wisest nations and 
ages represented revenge as a mark of a noble mind. 
But how different from the mind of Christ ! and at 
what an infinite remove from the generous, exalted 
spirit of him who, as he was sinking upon the cross, 
prayed for his murderers ! The religion of the Bible 
stands opposed to all the selfish and mercenary affec- 
tions of the human heart, and just so far as it prevails, 
eradicates and destroys them. " If there be any virtue, 
and if there be any praise,'^ they are found in the 
lofty spirit and high moral virtues of a self-renouncing 
religion. 

Such is the exalted spirit of the Bible, and such 
some of the great and distinguishing peculiarities of 
the religion it inculcates and imparts. There is one 
exalted Personage, and only one, in whom the high 
dignity of the Christian character was fully and per- 
fectly illustrated. The example of the man Christ 
Jesus perfectly accords with his doctrines and pre- 
cepts. He copied out the reUgion of the Bible in his 
life. His spirit was known, and developed, and is 
perfectly understood. He was rich, and for our sakes 
became poor ; happy, and for us became a man of 
sorrows and acquainted with griefs; the Prince of 
life, and died for us on the cross, that we might be 
rich, and honoured, and happy, and live with him. 
The only reward he sought was the reward which 
alone could gratify his benevolent mind : diseases 
healed, sorrows soothed, tears wiped away, ignor- 
ance enlightened, the wayward counselled, the de- 
sponding encouraged, the unholy made pure, the 
guilty forgiven, the lost saved. This was his reward. 
When men could not ascend to him, he descended to 



TRUE RELIGION. 245 

them. When they neither deserved, nor sought his 
favour, he gave it undeserved and unsought. The 
abjectness, the sufferings, the sins of men were the 
magnet that drew him forth from his retirement and 
excited his commiseration. No toil could weary, 
no obstacles hinder, no opposition discourage, no 
delay interrupt, no cold and thankless insensibility 
dishearten him. From Bethlehem to Calvary, he 
went about doing good. The history of men fur- 
nishes here and there a splendid illustration of active, 
self-denying, devoted piety ; and we observe and 
remember it as a rare event. It is hke a stream of 
water in a dry place ; a green spot in the desert ; an 
oasis amid Arabian sands. The life of Christ has no 
such inequalities. It does not strike us by its occa- 
sional and novel exhibitions, for they are uniform and 
constant. There is something greatly affecting in the 
Saviour's spirit. It is more than human. It belongs 
not to earth. It was never found except in his own 
immaculate bosom. 

Whatever there is of true rehgion in the world re- 
sembles such a piety as this, though it falls far short 
of it. And how unspeakably above the famed excel- 
lencies of heathen lands ! It is piety altogether of an 
original character. The heathen genius never con- 
ceived it. It never entered the mind of this world's 
philosophy to form such a character as that of Paul or 
Howard. Such developments of mind and heart never 
would have been made but for the Bible. It is not 
easy to conceive of a deeper, darker chasm than that 
which would be made by the absence of these princi- 
ples which have formed thousands of characters assi- 
milated to these, and given so high a direction to 
minds whose lofty movement is at such a distance 
from the low and abject spirit of this unbeheving and 
self-indulgent world. 



246 INFLUENCE UPON 

Let it not be supposed that this is a light obligation 
under which the world is placed to a supernatural re- 
velation. Holiness is the highest attainment of a 
rational creature. It is the greatest good which man 
ever can acquire. It is the greatest good in the uni- 
verse. It is greater than wealth, greater than plea- 
sure, than honour, than happiness. It is the only good 
that may be sought at all times, under all circumstances, 
and at every hazard. It is the only good that may 
be sought as an end and for its own sake. A man is 
not necessarily praiseworthy because he is happy, nor 
blameworthy because he is unhappy. Seek therefore, 
my young friends, not to be affluent and honourable, 
no, nor mainly to be happy. Seek what is more sub- 
limely excellent, seek to be virtuous and holy. Seek 
that your hearts may be subdued and won to God by 
the power of his own truth. No natural amiableness 
of disposition, no mere cultivation of intellect, no good 
name in the world, no unimpeached rectitude in your 
transactions with your fellow-men, no punctuality in 
your attendance upon the ordinances of the sanctuary, 
and no external relation to the church of God, can be 
a substitute for that internal holiness which is an in- 
dispensable preparation for the heavenly world. 0, 
when will men understand and feel that nothing pos- 
sesses importance compared with what relates to God 
and eternity ! Nothing within the range of human 
thought deserves consideration compared with this. 
Never was there stronger evidence of folly than that 
man presents, who chooses this world for his portion. If 
tears could quench the fires of that world of torment, 
those fires would be quenched at the remembrance of 
the folly that preferred this world to the salvation of 
the soul. And if tears should be ever shed in heaven, 
it will be at the remembrance of the supineness, the 
indifference with which those of you who have hope 



TRUE RELIGION. 247 

toward God are directing your way toward that " ex- 
ceeding and eternal weight of glory." 

A few short years, if not before, and you and I shall 
descend to the tomb. Time passes swiftly over the 
head that rests beneath the clods of the valley. A s 
sleep that overtakes us at night, leads us imperceptibly 
and gently through its long watches, and we neither 
number nor heed its hours, so will coming centuries 
revolve, and on the morning of a new world, we shall 
wake as from a dream to stand before the tribunal of 
the great Judge. To-day, we are upon the stream of 
time ; to-morrow, we are floated forth upon the ocean 
of eternity. There is no intermediate state of being, 
no line of separation between this world and the next. 
Another step, and we have entered on the world of 
everlasting retribution. But what retribution is it to 
which we are destined ? Momentous question ! Is 
it to that world of peace and joy ; or is it to those re- 
gions of perturbation and pain ? Is it to those calm 
skies where no tempest rages and no billows roll ; or 
is it to the eternal agitations of that lake of fire ? 0, 
tell me, were it not a melancholy state of existence to 
be gliding down the stream of time under the awful 
uncertainty whether it will land you in the realms of 
bliss, or the regions of wo ? 



21 * 



LECTUKE XL 

THE PRE-EMINENCE OF THE BIBLE FOR THE INFLU- 
ENCES OF THE HOLY SPIRIT. 

We have already remarked that the Bible furnishes 
all those truths and motives which are the appropriate 
materials of a spiritual mind, and as such constitute 
the great and only means of personal holiness. Truth 
and love are the weapons which the Author of the 
Scriptures makes use of in the great moral contest that 
is going on in our world. In this respect, the religion 
of the Bible differs from all other religions. Other re- 
ligions have employed force, authority, stratagem: 
the power of the sword, the authority of princes, the 
policy of priests and statesmen have all been made use 
of to accomplish their selfish designs ; but the Bible 
knows nothing of this. Though it reveals a system 
of truth, and requires affections every where opposed 
to the selfishness of the human heart, and the pride 
of human reason, a system at war with human world- 
liness and sensuality, and that neither flatters the 
pride, nor tempts the avarice, nor pampers the lusts of 
men ; yet does it reject with indignation every attempt 
to influence them, except by considerations which 
commend themselves to the conscience. Frank and 
ingenuous in the expression of its claims, candid and 

248 



i 



DIVINE INFLUENCE. 249 

open in the designs it aims at accomplishing, it counts 
on success only as its truths enlighten the understand- 
ing, awaken and regulate the conscience, and purify 
the heart. True religion has its seat in the soul. It 
is a matter not of external forms and observances, but 
of conviction and feeling. No man possesses it any 
farther than he voluntarily embraces its principles and 
feels their power. The Bible therefore must neces- 
sarily depend for its triumphs, not upon the authority 
of human governments, or the tricks of sordid policy, 
or any concealment of its ultimate objects, or any ap- 
peals to human selfishness, but upon its own inherent 
excellence and high-born claims. Falsehood and sophis- 
try never made a man at heart the friend of the Bible. 
Every true believer in the word of God has the wit- 
ness within his own bosom, that he is not led away by 
" cunningly devised fables and the craftiness of men," 
but that his confidence in it is justified by the begun 
and growing conformity of his heart to the heavenly 
character which this word requires. The truths of 
the Bible have been brought home to his own soul 
" in demonstration of the Spirit and of power." There 
is an agency that gives them effect which is exerted 
by God himself. We do not hear this still, small 
voice, nor is it in any way an agency that is the ob- 
ject of our sense. The hand that accomplishes the 
work is unseen, and all that we can behold is the 
work itself accomplished. It is the supreme, the 
almighty agency of God, by the unseen power of his 
Holy Spirit. It is an influence that controls the 
thoughts, dispositions and affections, and that makes 
the Bible the " wisdom of God and the power of God 
to salvation." 

Now this constitutes one great pre-eminence of the 
Holy Scriptures, and is fitted to show the obligations 
of the world to this sacred volume. It has higher 



250 DIVINE INFLUENCE. 

claims to our regard even than the excellence of its 
truths. It reveals the existence and interposition of 
an omnipotent Agent, known in the method of redemp- 
tion by Jesus Christ, whose province it is to enlighten 
and renovate the heart, and give power and energy 
to his own revelations. This can be affirmed of no 
false religion. Just before the Author of the gospel 
left our world for his throne in the heavens, he pro- 
mised his disciples that he would send the heavenly 
Paraclete, who should " reprove the world of sin, of 
righteousness and of judgment ;" who "should guide 
into all truth ;" who " should take of the things that 
are Christ's and show them unto his people." The 
religion of the Bible therefore has this high and pecu- 
liar pledge of its efficacy, that it is associated with an 
omnipotent agency, which, by its control over the in- 
tellectual faculties and moral dispositions, renders the 
truth which God has revealed effectual in the moral 
transformation of men. 

God has revealed himself in the Scriptures as One 
in Three. So distinct are the three, that they sustain 
distinct offices in the work of Redemption, and possess 
the properties of distinct persons ; and yet so intima- 
tely are they identified in the divine nature, that they 
are the one only living and true Jehovah. This is a 
great mystery, and we receive it on the testimony of 
God. The Holy Spirit is not a mere influence, or 
power, or emanation of the Deity, but a living Agent, 
to whom the Scriptures ascribe intelligence, choice, 
and power. He is represented as teaching, instruct- 
ing, dictating, commanding, commissioning, sending 
forth, convincing, sanctifying, and bearing witness. 
To him are appropriated the true and proper names 
of the Deity. He is spoken of as eternal, omnipre- 
sent, omniscient, and as one who is worshipped as 
God. He is the direct and immediate Author of the 



DIVINE INFLUENCE. 251 

Scriptures, while miraculous gifts and operations are 
every where ascribed to his power. There are also 
internal operations of the Spirit ; that is, operations 
immediately exerted upon the mind itself. It is his 
province to illuminate the ignorant and benighted ; to 
awaken the thoughtless ; to convince the obdurate ; to 
renew and sanctify the heart: to comfort and seal the 
heirs of salvation for their final mheritance, and fit 
them for the glory to be hereafter revealed. The 
truths of the Scriptures, though divine in their origin, 
are only the instrumental cause of all holy impressions. 
Their saving efficacy, in all cases, depends on the power 
and agency of the Holy Spirit. Nor are the nature 
and mode of this influence altogether undefined. It is 
in every instance connected with the truth ; imparting 
to the mind clear perceptions of what God has reveal- 
ed in his word, and rendering these perceptions im- 
pressive and effectual to the formation of a spiritual 
character. Truth is the motive of the change, and 
the agency of the Spirit its cause. 

The terms and illustrations by which the Scriptures 
represent the work of the Spirit are strongly signifi- 
cant. Sometimes it is represented by the metaphori- 
cal language of the " new birth.^' When, in the 
moral history of man, a rebel becomes a child, it is 
because he is " begotten, not of blood, nor of the will 
of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God." 
Sometimes it is exhibited as a " new creation." When 
from the confusion, darkness, and disorder of the na- 
tural mind, men are formed anew, and adorned with 
all the glories of a spiritual transformation ; they are 
" his workmanship, created anew in Christ Jesus after 
the image of him that created them." Sometimes it 
is set forth as a " resurrection from the dead." If the 
dead in sin burst the bars of their cold sepulchre and 
come forth, it is because " he quickens them," and 



252 DIVINE INFLUENCE. 

his Spirit is the sole Author of this new and holy life. 
If the apostate child of Adam becomes the child of 
God ; if his moral nature lives by new culture, and his 
faculties acquire a new development ; if he sustains 
new relations, possesses new tastes, preferences, and 
pleasures ; if he is devoted to new pursuits ; if he has 
a new heart and a new spirit ; it is from " the washing 
of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Ghost." 
" He that hath wrought him for this self-same thing 
is God." 

I need not tell you that a different theology from 
this has, to no inconsiderable extent, pervaded the 
Church of God in almost every age. Pelagius, as 
early as the fifth century of the Christian era, taught, 
that " for us to be men, is of God ; but that for us to 
be righteous, is of ourselves." Of the same class are 
those teachers in modern times, who affirm that while 
God cannot regenerate men, men regenerate them- 
selves ! We have no fellowship with views so directly 
opposed to the instructions of the Bible, and so utterly 
at variance with the experience of good men. I have 
often wondered at the rashness of those who have 
ventured thus to tamper with principles of such ex- 
treme delicacy and importance. There is nothing we 
should approach with greater fear and trembling than 
the work of that Almighty Spirit, to whom so much is 
entrusted, and whose office and honours are protected 
by such fearful sanctions. It is easy to give a wrong 
touch to the ark of God. The great principle of the 
Spirit's influence is to the Christian system what the 
main spring and shaft are to a delicate and exact ma- 
chinery. It is an impulse of prodigious power, and 
may not be jostled out of its place by curious and un- 
hallowed hands. I cannot but regard the immediate, 
effectual interposition of the Holy Spirit, superadded 
to all the means of grace and salvation, as one of those 



DIVINE INFLUENCE. 253 

fundamental truths that are settled in heaven, and 
ought never to be unsettled on earth. It was just 
observed that the error to which we refer is at vari- 
ance with ail sound experience. What is more com- 
mon than for men under strong convictions to be 
thrown into deep distress and agony, from a view of 
the difficulties in the way of their conversion ? What 
pious man has not been deeply sensible of his insuffi- 
ciency to change his own heart, and a thousand times 
gratefully acknowledged that the change is to be attri- 
buted to a cause without himself? Who has not evi- 
dence within his own bosom, which is instead of a 
thousand exterior arguments, that there are obstacles 
to be surmounted in this great work, to which nothing 
is adequate but divine power ? Nay, is not this in- 
sufficiency one of the first lessons in the school of 
Christ ? 

I have seen men who went up to the house of God 
with the unbending spirit of rebellion against their 
Maker, who went away with the meekness and 
docility of little children. I have seen men of all 
ranks and ages, of all opinions and prejudices found 
in Christian lands, of every degree and variety of 
information from the shrewd jurist to the humble 
artisan, of all dispositions and characters, become 
alike and together the subjects of a moral transfor- 
mation, the reality of which has been demonstrated 
by a subsequent life of practical godUness, and under 
the influence of light and motives which they had 
often previously resisted and which others around 
them still resist. How are these moral phenomena to 
be accounted for? If there be a divine influence in 
regeneration, there is nothing ambiguous, nothing 
doubtful, nothing wonderful in such results, except as 
they are expressive of wonderful power and mercy. 
When I see the forest bend and the sturdy oaks trem- 



254 DIVINE INFLUENCE. 

ble ; when I hear the tempest howl and behold the 
ocean foam with fury ; though I see neither the cloud 
nor the air, I know there is " a strong and mighty- 
wind." So when I see a whole assembly moved as 
the trees of the wood ; when I behold the fountains of 
human depravity broken up, its deep abyss boil, its 
troubled waters cast up mire and dirt, and after the 
storm listen " to the still small voice ;" I know that 
the arm of the King eternal, invisible and immortal is 
made bare. " The wind bloweth where it listeth, 
and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell 
whence it cometh and whither it goeth ; so is every 
one that is born of the Spirit." 

The change of which the Spirit of God is the Author 
is a moral, a spiritual change. It does not effect a 
transformation in the essential properties of the soul ; 
but rather so enlightens and influences its existing 
properties, that, in a moral view, it becomes a new 
creature, and possesses altogether another spiritual 
character. It does not impart any new intellectual 
faculty, but rather enriches faculties that have become 
impoverished by sin ; directs faculties that have been 
ill-directed ; imparts sensitiveness and integrity to the 
conscience, and holiness to the heart. Nor is the 
influence that causes it, an influence that is necessary 
in order to originate or sustain the obligations to holi- 
ness. There is enough of intellect and conscience in 
the most reprobate sinner to make it every way suit- 
able and proper that he should be required to be holy, 
even though the influences of the Holy Spirit were 
forever withheld. The obligations to holiness are 
destroyed by nothing short of idiocy. " He that 
knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin." 

The reasons for the necessity of this divine influ- 
ence may be stated in a very few words. All men 
by the fall lost communion with God. Not only 



DIVINE INFLUENCE. 255 

have they no original righteousness, but deeply seated 
original sin. Mental blindness, unfaithfulness of con- 
science, and a total depravation of all the moral affec- 
tions constitute the character of every natural man. 
That character is written in three memorable words, — 
" enmity against God." Now it were marvellous if 
such a man were the cause of his own regeneration. 
Love produced by enmity — holiness caused by sin — 
light created by darkness ! The reason then why a 
divine influence is necessary is, that men never will, 
and never can become holy without it. " Ye will not 
come unto me that ye might have life ;" " no man can 
come to me, except the Father who hath sent me 
draw him." Both these representations are alike 
entitled to our confidence. Until God draws them, no 
matter what the variety and novelty of their mental 
developments, no matter what the rigour of their 
external reformation, no matter what the strength of 
their most solemn purposes of repentance, they depart 
farther from him. 

It has been already intimated that the Divine Spirit 
acts on the mind itself. A misconception of the truth 
in this particular, has induced error. The disciples of 
the Arminian school do not, in expressed terms, deny 
the doctrine of divine influence. And yet they vir- 
tually deny it. Dr. Whitby himself concedes that 
" God vouchsafes some inward operations, or assis- 
tance to incline men to what is good, and work con- 
version in them ; while at the same time he asserts, 
that this influence is confined " to a more clear repre- 
sentation of the truth, that we may have a fuller evi- 
dence and stronger conviction of it." Such is the 
modern doctrine of the same school. Men are not 
wanting at the present day who affirm that all the 
influence which the Spirit of God exerts is a moral, 
or suasory influence ; and that it is impossible the 

22 



25G DIVINE INFLUENCE. 

mind should be subjected to any other. But this 
whole system is mitrue. Who has told us that he 
who created the human mind cannot control and 
govern it ; and that, when light and motives can no 
longer influence its course, by the same voice by which 
" he spake and it was done, and command'^d and it 
stood fast," he cannot so express his omnipotent will 
that the sinner shall turn and live ? What is there in 
the laws of mind to prevent omnipotence from arresting 
its attention, impressing its conscience, and changing 
its affections ? Away with all this philosophy, falsely 
so called ! The single question is, does the Spirit of 
God, in changing the heart through the intervention 
of truth, act upon the truth, or upon the mind ? How 
does it act upon the truth ? Does it change it ? does 
it present it in such a way that the hostile mind falls 
in with it ? The door is closed. The mind itself is 
inaccessible. The heart must be first opened, as was 
the heart of Lydia when she received the things that 
were spoken by Paul. The Saviour made use of 
clay to open the eyes of him that was born blind. 
But it was not the clay that opened them, but the 
Saviour himself. And though the analogy does not 
hold in all respects, it illustrates the thought we wish 
to convey. The change in regeneration is effected 
by the Holy Spirit through the truth, while the influ- 
ence of the Spirit is exerted, not on the truth, but on 
the understanding and heart. Men may not always 
know how this moral transformation was effected, 
except that it was by an influence above all the power 
of second causes. With the man who was born blind, 
they can say, " One thing I know, that whereas I was 
once blind, I now see." And if any doubt the imme- 
diate power of God in their conversion, with him they 
might well reply, " Why herein is a marvellous thing, 
that ye know not whence he is, and yet he hath 
opened mine eyes !" 



DIVINE INFLUENCE. 257 

What is the change effected in regeneration ? Is it 
a mere resolution to forsake the wa^^-s of sin and death? 
Is it the mere preference of rehgious duties and a reli- 
gious life to the world? What then prevents the 
anxious and convinced sinner from being converted, 
when he forms resolution upon resolution to become 
the child of God, and when, amid the agonies of his 
conviction, the world to him is a mere cypher ? What 
prevents the dying sinner from being converted, when 
he would give ten thousand worlds for one smile of 
mercy? What prevents the benighted sinner from 
being converted, when, in contempt of every worldly 
interest, he prostrates himself beneath the idol-car ? 
What prevents the self-righteous sinner from being 
converted, when he " gives all his goods to feed the 
poor, and his body to be burned," in order to obtain 
the favour of God? Regeneration lies deeper than 
this, else might it indeed be effected by moral suasion. 
It consists in a "new heart and a new spirit." It is 
a state of mind that hates sin and loves holiness ; 
that believes the record that God has given of his Son, 
and trusts in him alone for salvation ; that not only 
resolves to love God, but loves him, — more than the 
world, more than self, more than every thing. In 
effecting such a change, there are difficulties which 
no influence merely suasory, be it human, angelic, or 
divine, can remove. There is not a consideration in 
the universe sufficiently alluring to win, or weighty 
enough to break, a supremely selfish heart. The 
Holy Spirit imparts no omnipotence to motives ; he 
exerts it himself. They do not open the eyes of the 
blind, but he opens them. They do not take away 
the heart of stone and give the heart of flesh ; he does 
it, himself " working in men, to will and to do of his 
own good pleasure. 

But you will naturally ask, Is this influence effec- 



258 DIVINE INFLUENCE. 

tual, wherever it is exerted ? It is eifectual. It over- 
comes resistance. The struggle of the depraved mind, 
and all its angry conflict with truth and motives is 
over, when the mighty Spirit speaks. No sooner 
does he touch the heart, than the work is accomplished. 
The effect is produced just as certainly as the influ- 
ence is exerted. The cause is controlling and decisive. 
It acts upon the will and destroys resistance. It is 
" effectual calling." And it is a signal act of mighty 
power ; a power that speaks into being, what had no 
being before ; a power that lays its commands on 
things that do not exist, and effectually enforces obe- 
dience. No laws of matter or of mind can accomplish 
this mighty work. No means, no second causes can 
accomplish it. Parents cannot accomplish it by all 
their solicitude and faithfulness. Christians cannot 
accomplish it by all their expostulations and counsel. 
Ministers cannot accomplish it by all their preaching. 
Bibles and Sabbaths cannot accomplish it by all their 
combined and concentrated energy. The law cannot 
accomplish it by its terrors, nor the gospel by its ten- 
derness. The selectest mercies cannot accomplish it, 
nor the heaviest judgments. Wars, earthquakes and 
pestilence cannot accomplish it. The rending rocks, 
the deep thunder, the vivid lightning, cannot accom- 
plish it. Angels cannot accomplish it by all their 
watchfulness and guardianship. The Spirit of God 
alone accomplishes it, and by the excellency of his 
power. 

It is not unnatural also to inquire, whether this in- 
fluence is extended to all. If it were, one thing is 
certainly true, that all would become holy, and finally 
saved. It is therefore a sovereign influence. It is im- 
parted and withheld, not without reason ; not without 
the best of reasons ; but for reasons unknown to us. 
In this, as in other things, the Sovereign Arbiter does 



DIVINE INFLUENCE. 259 

not treat all alike. It is not extended to all to whom 
God is able to extend it, but to all to whom he is 
pleased to extend it. There is a theory which affirms 
that God shows mercy to as many as he is able to 
show mercy to, while the theory of the Bible unequivo- 
cally and in strong contrast affirms, that he extends 
this agency to as many as he sees best, and " hath 
mercy on Avhom he will have mercy." It required no 
more effijrt in Omnipotence to create the world, than 
to create an atom ; and it requires no more effi)rt from 
him to regenerate one man, than another. If you ask 
why he ever withholds this gracious influence, I must 
cover my face and be silent : or if I give utterance to 
a single thought while dwelling on this inscrutable 
mystery, can only say, " Even so. Father ! for so it 
seemed good in thy sight." This is one of the " secret 
things which belong to God." 

Will any think it strange that with this last cha- 
racteristic of the Spirit's influence, I still say, that it is 
one of the distinguishing glories of the Bible } It has 
no greater glory ; nor has the Divine mind any greater 
mercy than is here unfolded. And those who deny 
him this, take away the only ground of hope. We 
may say of this great truth, what the great Reformer 
so justly said of another. It is the " Articulus^ aid 
staiitis, aut cadentis ecelesixP \Vith it the Church 
and the Bible stand, or fall. The denial of it is a vir- 
tual subversion of the whole gospel. Though too 
searching a principle, and too humbling to the pride 
of man not to be frittered away, unless there be great 
self-renunciation and simplicity of spirit, and great 
union of heart, of efl'ort, and of prayer ; yet can it 
never be too highly appreciated. Every holy aflec- 
tion and purpose that finds a dwelling among men, 
and that is cherished in the cold bosoms of this low 
world, is from this eternal source. The holy and happy 



260 DIVINE INFLUENCE. 

emotions that light up so many smiles within the other- 
wise cheerless and curtained chambers of the soul; the 
benignant designs that diffuse such a charm over this 
otherwise desponding world, and throw their perspec- 
tive into the far vale of futurity, would all be turned 
again into gloom and darkness, but for this power of 
the Highest that overshadows them. " Upon the land 
of my people shall come up thorns and briers ; yea, 
upon all the houses of joy in the joyous city. The 
pastures shall be forsaken 5 the multitude of the city 
shall be left a joy of wild asses, a pasture of flocks, 
until the Spirit be poured from on high.'^ The shades 
of night will never be chased away ; the rigours and 
silence of winter will lock up the world in its icy 
chains, until this Sun of Righteousness arise. It is 
the pre-eminence of the Bible that it discloses this dis- 
pensation of the Spirit. 

May we not easily see in view of this great pecu- 
liarity of the Scriptures, why it is that the gospel of 
the Son of God has made such progress in our world? 
The strength of false religions lies in the power of 
custom and habit, in the most unworthy appeals to 
the passions and interests of men, in the constraints of 
human authority and in the sword. They have all 
failed for want of some inherent power, some atten- 
dant influence upon the mind to render them eff'ec- 
tual ; an influence which they could not secure because 
they were false. Not one of them has been able to 
stand forth alone, and perpetuate itself unaided by 
artifice, or arms, or the power of the civil govern- 
ment ; and none of them could look to any higher 
source for aid. Mahomet was occupied three years 
in making fourteen converts. After seven years efl'ort^ 
when he fled from Mecca to Medina, he numbered 
but one hundred and one followers. Neither the re- 
ligion of Mahomet; nor any of the forms of paganism 



DIVINE INFLUENCE. 261 

carried with them their own inherent evidence of their 
truth, and of their divine origin ; nor has that great 
and ahnighty- Being who governs the moral as well 
as the natural world, given them any testimony of his 
approbation. The Bible on the other hand, carries 
with it this evidence of its divine origin, that it is at- 
tended with the mighty power of God. When the 
despised Son of Mary hung upon the cross, who would 
have thought that the religion of which he was the 
Author was destined to cover the earth as the waters 
cover the sea ? Who would have thought, that con- 
trary to all human probabilities, in opposition to all 
human power, and striking as it did a deadly blow to 
all the idolatry of self, it would have so triumphed 
over error, superstition and wickedness, changed the 
heart of man, the form of human society, and the reli- 
gion of the world ? Look a moment at this wonder- 
ful fact. Here is a system, the leading principles of 
which are not discoverable by the lights of nature and 
reason, a system that is to be propagated not by force, 
but by conviction, becoming the living religion of all 
the nations of the earth. At the expiration of forty 
days after the death of its founder, it numbered one 
hundred and twenty followers ; immediately after, 
three thousand ; and soon after, five thousand more. 
In the progress of a single century, it extended itself 
over Syria and Libya, Egypt and Arabia, Persia and 
Mesopotamia, pervaded Asia Minor, Armenia and 
Parthia, and even large portions of Europe. Unfold- 
ing as it did God in human nature, declaring as it did 
the substitution of the innocent for the guilty, insist- 
ing as it did upon a radical transformation of the hu- 
man heart, principles which are to the Jew a stumb- 
ling block, and to the Greek foolishness, it entered 
upon the conquest of the world. The learning of 
Athens, the wealth of Corinth, the pride of Rome, 



262 DIVINE INFLUENCE. 

bowed before it. It waved its standard amid the re- 
finements of civilization and triumphed over the de- 
gradations of barbarism. No climate arrests its pro- 
gress; no form of human society can exclude it. 
Every where its effects are the same ; the same its 
illuminations of the understanding, its convictions of 
the conscience, its renovation of the heart ; its holiness, 
its hopes, its joys, its prospects the same. It is natural 
to ask, whence this success ? Never was a change 
wrought in the character of man by means so simple, 
so unostentatious, so utterly at war with all the pride 
and egotism of the human heart. We see no power 
proportioned to the effect. What was it ? It cannot 
be difficult to see what it was. God was with it. 
The secret of its success is found in the attendant 
power of its Author. No natural causes can account 
for such a phenomenon as the wide extension and the 
hallowed effects of the Bible. It is a phenomenon 
altogether unique in its kind, and produced only by 
the instrumentality of truth under the broad seal of 
heaven. Nor have its triumphs ceased. These com- 
mendations and honours are not flowers thrown upon 
its tomb. The moral efficacy of the Scriptures is de- 
monstration that they are " living oracles,^' and that 
the word of God is " quick and powerful " beyond all 
other power. Men are conscious of the spiritual ex- 
cellence it reveals and imparts. When we can look 
round upon this magnificent and beautiful creation, 
and doubt whether it is the work of the divine hand, 
then too we may look at the effects of the Bible, and 
doubt whether they discover the work of the divine 
mind. And this they will discover more and more. 
The evidence is accumulative, and accumulating every 
hour. It is unlimited, but by the boundaries of the 
earth ; it is prospective, and shall never terminate, but 
with the end of time. Not only has the gospel made 



DIVINE INFLUENCE. 263 

rapid progress in our world, but. it shall make still 
more wonderful progress. The Spirit of God has but 
begun to descend. The chief part of his work and re- 
ward is yet in expectation. These Scriptures go forth, 
not only under the sanction, but under the promised, 
assured, eflectual, and still more abundant blessing of 
their Author in time to come. lie has said, " As the 
rain cometh down and the snow from heaven, and re- 
turneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh 
it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the 
sower and bread to the eater ; so shall my word be 
that goeth forth out of my mouth. It shall not return 
unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I 
please, and prosper in the thing whereunto I sent it.'^ 
With the Bible in their hands and the Spirit of God 
among their people, the ministers of salvation " shall 
go out with joy, and be led forth with peace. The 
mountains and the hills shall break forth before them 
into singing, and all the trees of the field shall clap 
their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the 
fir-tree, and instead of the briar shall come up the 
myrtle-tree ; and it shall be to the Lord for a name, 
for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off.'' 
With this influence, the wilderness shall be turned into 
a paradise, and Lebanon into Carmel. The Bible will 
march onward in defiance of all the indifference of a 
world that lieth in wickedness, of all the arts of philo- 
sophy, and all the virulence of relentless persecution. 
While other religions, devised by human wisdom, and 
propagated by the secular arm, shall be seen to possess 
no self-perpetuating power, and pass away, and leave 
no memorial behind them ; the religion of the Bible 
shall live, and be diffused, and find its triumphs in the 
moral purity and happiness of '^ a great multitude 
which no man can number." Myriads, by this gra- 
cious mfluence, will yet be dehvered from the power 



264 DIVINE INFLUENCE. 

of darkness and translated into the kingdom of God's 
dear Son ; and myriads more will yet rise up " an ex- 
ceeding great army," from the valley where there 
were " bones very man}^ and very dry," and where 
breath came upon them from the four winds. Go and 
stand in the midst of some of those numberless scenes 
of wonder and of mercy, of sovereignty and of omni- 
potence, where the Spirit of God has moved the as- 
semblies of his people ; where hundreds have trembled 
as on the verge of wo ; and where, after the storm 
was past, the voice of mercy has whispered divine 
peace, and awoke their everlasting song ; and you 
may appreciate, in some small degree, the love and 
power of the Holy Spirit. If you look forward to 
what this celestial Comforter will yet accomplish, 
when the great mass of human minds shall be sub- 
jected to his gracious influence ; when so many hearts 
shall be purified, and so many lives renewed ; when 
every land shall be redeemed from its corruption and 
bondage, and the world assume a character which 
shall be the counterpart to the great truths which this 
divine agent impresses on the soul, with overwhelm- 
ing gratitude may you recognize the pre-eminence of 
his great work. We anticipate with confidence the 
ultimate triumphs of the Bible because there is no in- 
constancy of purpose, no weakness, no despondency 
in the mind of the Spirit. The work of the adorable 
Saviour was finished, when he bowed his head and 
sunk upon the cross ; while the ever blessed Spirit has 
but just entered on his wonder-working career. It is 
reserved for him to gather his laurels from the sheaves 
of the coming harvest, and find his reward in the 
purity and blessedness of a regenerated world. 

Permit me also to remind you, my young friends, 
that the same divine influence which is the hope of 
the world is also your hope, your only hope, your 



DIVINE INFLUENCE. 265 

great and only incentive and encouragement in the 
divine life. Thus Paul considered it, when he said, 
«< When I am weak, then am I strong.^' Thus a pious 
female of the last century considered it, when uttering 
the emotions of all the effectually called, she ex- 
claimed, " Though I am perfect weakness, I have 
omnipotence to lean upon." Thus the ever-blessed 
Spirit himself considered it, when he left the injunc- 
tion, ^- Work out your salvation with fear and trem- 
bling, for it is God that worketh in you to will and to 
do of his good pleasure." I know not why men 
should stumble at the threshold of their inquiries, 
over their dependence on the Spirit of God ; as 
though this discouraged, rather than encouraged 
them ; as though it shut the doors of heaven, rather 
than kept them open ; as though it retarded and 
bewildered them in their progress, rather than led 
them onward ; as though, because " without Christ 
they can do nothing," they cannot do all things 
" through Christ strengthening them." I know not 
why it is not your privilege and mine to make the 
same practical use of our dependence on the Spirit 
of grace that was made by patriarchs, prophets, 
apostles, and martyrs. And sure I am, the use they 
made of it was, not to relax the bonds of obligation, 
encourage indifference, and sanction sloth or procras- 
tination ; but to impart strength in weakness, hope in 
despondency, courage in depression, darkness, and 
difficulty, and induce them to "take hold of God's 
strength and be at peace." Man in his best estate 
is weak and fallible. Of the choicest human endow- 
ments, we may say, " This treasure we have in 
earthen vessels." Your strength is made perfect by 
conscious weakness. If the Spirit of God help not 
your infirmities, you are truly weak. But confident 
of his support, " with a thousand perils in your eye," 



266 DIVINE INFLUENCE. 

yoii may say, " None of these things move me ; 
neither count I my Hfe dear to myself, so that I might 
finish my course with joy." Not a httle of the dark- 
ness and despondency which perplex men in the 
present world, is to be attributed to the low views 
they entertain of the divine power and goodness. 
Just views of these attributes would always dispel 
the cloud. " The things which are impossible with 
men are possible with God." Whatever reasons men 
have to distrust themselves, they have none to distrust 
him. 

I will not close this lecture without adding another 
thought. How obvious, in view of the principles 
which have been suggested, is the privilege and duty 
of prayer. " If ye, being evil, know how to give 
good gifts unto your children, how much more shall 
your Father which is in heaven, give his Holy Spirit 
to them that ask him !" I know of no other way of 
procuring these divine influences than to solicit them. 
"Ask, and ye shall receive ; seek, and ye shall find ; 
knock, and it shall be opened unto you." A man 
who feels that his heart is wholly inclined to evil, 
" deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked," 
yea, "enmity against God," cannot live without 
prayer, and indulge any hope that he will ever become 
a converted man. He will find his conscience more 
and more obdurate, his heart more and more fortified 
against the claims of the Bible, and hardened in sin ; 
while the spirit and maxims of the world, and the 
subtle and ceaseless power of him who " goeth about 
like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour," 
rivet the chains of sin and death. The Christian who 
would resist the strength of his natural corruptions, 
and surmount the hinderances which beset his path to 
heaven, and who would not sink in utter despon- 
dency before the responsibility and perils of his high 



DIVINE INFLUENCE. 267 

calling, must daily aspire after that divine aid which 
makes his progress certain and his triumph sure. 
The minister of the gospel who would be raised 
above discouragement in view of his own insufficiency 
and the greatness of his work, may, if he have the 
faith and prayer to ally his own weakness with the 
energy of the Holy Spirit, persevere in his labours, 
not only with undiscouraged cheerfulness and resolu- 
tion, but comforted hopes. The church that " sows 
in tears may reap in joy." The spirit of prayer will 
give her confidence and hope. Whom she cannot 
awaken, and convince, and convert, God can rouse 
from their apathy, open their hearts to understand 
his word, and at a time, and in a way that shall 
make his own power and grace the most conspicuous. 
Prayer makes the doubting hope, the feeble strong. 
It gives humility and confidence in God. It makes 
every effort for the salvation of men spiritual and 
holy. "Prayer moves the hand that moves the 
world." Who would be insensible to the value of 
prayer } 



23 



LECTUEE XII. 

THE OBLIGATIONS OF THE WORLD TO THE BIBLE FOR 
THE SABBATH. 

Every reflecting man must, one would suppose, con- 
template with grateful admiration, the great wisdom 
of the divine Author of the Scriptures in the institu- 
tion of the Sabbath. I know of nothing like this 
observance in any other system of rehgion except 
that revealed in the Bible, unless it be some faint 
traditions of it in some pagan lands of remote anti- 
quity. It is a weekly observance ; fixed and per- 
manent ; hebdomadal from its original institution, and 
to the end of time. Some of the ancient pagan 
nations had something in the form of an hebdomadal 
observance. Hesoid, the celebrated Greek poet of 
Boeotia, who lived about nine hundred years before 
the coming of Christ, says, " the seventh day is holy." 
Homer, who flourished about the same period, and 
Callimachus, also a Greek poet, who flourished in the 
reign of Ptolemy Euergetes, about seven hundred 
years later, speak of the seventh day as holy. Lucian 
also, a Greek writer, born at Samosata, who flourished 
about four hundred years after Callimachus, says, 
" The seventh day is given to the schoolboys as an 
holiday. '^ Jusephus, the celebrated Jewish historian, 

268 



THE SABBATH. 2G9 

says, " No city of Greeks, or barbarians can be found 
which does not acknowledge a seventh day's rest 
from labour." In the earlier ages of Greece, the 
years were numbered by the return of seed time and 
harvest, and the several seasons of labour and rest; 
and the day divided, not into hours, but into morning, 
noon, and evening. The months of the Greeks were 
divided into decades, or three periods of ten days 
each : and I do not find any mention of a division of 
time into weeks among that people. There was no 
Sabbath among the ancient Romans. Their year 
was originally divided by Romulus into ten months ; 
and afterwards, by Numa, into twelve. Their months, 
like those of the Greeks, were divided into three 
parts, kalends, nones, and ides. The custom of 
dividing time into weeks did not obtain until the 
reign of the emperor Severus.* Both the Greeks and 
Romans had their days of cessation from labour, but 
they were not hebdomadal. They were also reli- 
gious observances ; that is, they were devoted to the 
honour of their pagan gods. They were days on 
which their altars smoked with sacrifices ; days of 
festivity ; days on which their public games were 
celebrated, and on which their temples, groves, and 
sacred fields were stained with blood and resounded 
with bacchanalian madness. When heathen poets 
and historians therefore speak of holy days, they 
mean days of mirth and wickedness. Such are the 
days of rest throughout all Mohammedan countries. A 
late correspondent in one of our religious periodicals, 
describes a Sabbath in Constantinople as a day of 
universal sport and diversion.! Modern missionaries, 

* Potter's Antiquities of Greece, and Adam's Roman Anti- 
quities. 

f Cheever's Letters to the New York Observer. 



270 THE SABBATH. 

if I mistake not, uniformly testify, that there is no 
Sabbath in pagan lands. I have conversed with 
gentlemen of high intellectual and Christian character, 
who have resided years in China and India, who 
have informed me, that they could never see any 
signs of a sabbatical observance in those vast coun- 
tries. Nor have I been able to find any traces of a 
Sabbath among our own aborigines. The remark, 
therefore, needs no qualification that the Sabbath, as 
its design and duties are disclosed in the Scriptures, 
is one of the strong peculiarities of a supernatural 
revelation. It was given to the great progenitor of 
our race while he was in a state of unfallen innocence ; 
it was the first command, taking the precedence in 
point of time even to the prohibition of the tree of 
knowledge ; it rests on the essential relation of a 
creature to his glorious Creator. During the whole 
progress of the patriarchal age, you find traces of its 
observance. The manner in which its observance 
was revived and re-established before the commence- 
ment of the Mosaical economy and before the Israel- 
ites came to Mount Sinai, proves that it was an 
institution previously recognized, and had never been 
entirely lost. The authority and dignity given to it 
in the moral law affords decisive proof of its perpetual 
obligation. The allusions to it in the Psalms and in 
the Prophets, as well as its strict observance under 
the New Testament, show that it was destined to 
form a part of the gospel dispensation. The Saviour 
and his apostles honoured it, by honouring the ten 
commandments as of perpetual force and obligation ; 
by respecting its sanctity in their own deportment, 
and by recognizing its continuance at a period when 
all obligation to a merely Jewish institution would 
long have ceased. Nor was any thing abrogated 
under the Christian dispensation with respect to the 



THE SABBATH. 271 

Sabbath, except those temporary and figurative enact- 
ments which constituted the peculiarities of the Jewish 
age, and changed the Jewish Sabbath into the "Lord's 
Day/'* The Sabbath therefore is one of the great 
pecuUarities of a supernatural revelation. And not 
only is it one of its strong peculiarities, but an 
institution for the existence and influence of which 
the world is under untold obligations to its great 
Author. 

We may advert to this institution in the first in- 
stance, simply as a day of rest. One principal design 
of it was to give both man and beast one day's 
respite from labour out of every seven. It deserves 
our special notice, that the letter and spirit of the 
divine command require both man and beast to 
abstain from all servile occupations on this day. 
Rest constitutes one of the essential parts of this 
observance. In the language of the Scripture, to 
" profane the Sabbath" is the same thing as to labour 
upon the Sabbath, while to sanctify the Sabbath 
signifies to rest from labour. The Jews were so 
scrupulous in this particular, that they would not 
even take up arms in self-defence on this day ; so 
that when Antiochus Epiphanes and Pompey availed 
themselves of this conscientious tenderness, and at- 
tacked them on the Sabbath day, they became the 
victims of their fury without opposition. It was 
designed to be a day of respite from anxiety and 
toil ; a day of refreshment both to the mind and the 
body ; and though not required to be a day of feast- 
ing, was specially forbidden to be a day of fasting 
and sadness. 



*See these positions illustrated and defended in an able treatise 
on the Authority and Perpetual Obligation of the Sabbath, by 
the Rev. Daniel Wilson, now Bishop of Calcutta. 
23 * 



272 THE SABBATH. 

And is there not wonderful wisdom and benignity 
in such an arrangement? Man was not made for 
constant and unrelieved employment. He was not 
formed for seven days' toil, but for six. No doubt it 
seems to many persons that the mere fact of resting 
one day in seven, can exert very little influence on the 
condition of our own race. To men who never labour, 
it is not strange that this thought should sometimes 
occur. To the mass of pagan lands, whose life is one 
of dreaming indolence and sloth, the periodical recur- 
rence of such a rest would not make much difference 
in their condition. But to a man whose mental energy 
is in a state of perpetual excitement; to a laborious, 
working community, such a rest is like the soft slum- 
bers of midnight when it covers with its gentle folds 
an agitated and trembling mind, and a body over- 
powered with toil. The command to rest, it will be 
recollected, stands not alone. " Six days shalt thou 
labour.'' It is in the combined and contrasted influ- 
ence of such an arrangement only, that the Sabbath 
finds its appropriate place. There is nothing health- 
ful that is still and stagnant ; and there is nothing 
cheerful and placid where there is no cessation from the 
exhausting toil of this busy and care-worn world. God 
has given laws to this organic frame which cannot be 
violated with impunity. Man can no more labour a 
series of years without the Sabbath, than he can 
labour a series of days without nocturnal repose. The 
measure of weekly rest is as wisely determined by 
the Author of our physical constitution, as is the mea- 
sure of our diurnal rest. When in defiance of the 
laws of nature and heaven, France abolished the Sab- 
bath, and rested one day in ten, instead of one in 
seven, the experiment proved that the amount of 
productive labour was diminished by the change. It 
has been well ascertained that the proceeds of labour 



THE SABBATH. 273 

would, in any considerable period of time, be greater 
from six days in the week, than from the whole seven. 
" If there were two contiguous nations, the one of 
which observed a day of rest, and the other laboured 
every day in the year, and if in industry and the num- 
ber of labourers they were equal, there can be little 
doubt that the profits of the former would be consi- 
derably greater than those of the latter." Facts 
might be greatly multiplied to show that the repose 
of the Sabbath is indispensable to the most heathful 
and vigorous exercise of the physical powers. In 
nothing has the Creator more obviously accommo- 
dated his government to the physical constitution of 
man, than in prescribing this weekly rest. Just as a 
beast of burden breaks down prematurely that is 
worked every day in the year, will the powers of 
human life prematurely run down, if the toil of the 
week is not succeeded by the repose of the Sabbath. 
In an inquiry made a few years since before a com- 
mittee of the British House of Commons in relation to 
the influences of the Sabbath, an eminent physician, 
who had practised between thirty and forty years, 
testified, that " men of every class who are occupied 
six days in the week, would in the course of life be 
gainers by abstaining from labour on the seventh." 
The Sabbath has been emphatically called " the work- 
ing man's friend." Who can doubt that one motive 
which influenced its great Author to institute it was 
compassion to the poor ? A manufacturing, an agri- 
cultural, or even a commercial community, deprived 
of the Sabbath, could not live out half its days. One 
reason why princes, ministers of state, and seamen do 
not live so long as other men, is, that they have no 
weekly day of rest. A few short years of vigorous, 
excited exertion, without the weekly intervention of 
this repose, and both body and mind lose their nerve 



274 THE SABBATH. 

and sinew. And there is nothing to refresh their 
languor and invigorate their debility, but rest. The 
mind can no more bear to be over-worked, than the 
body. It becomes oppressed and burdened, and sinks 
in depression, and not unfrequently from its mere neglect 
of this day of rest, wanders in derangement. The 
truest economy of human life will be found in the 
provisions of that day of mercy, which, for the time 
being, shuts out the contrivance, care, perplexity, and 
responsibility of business, and invites to calm repose. 

It may be seriously doubted whether this distinct 
design of the Sabbatical institution is sufficiently con- 
sidered. It is a day of rest. No man has the warrant 
from heaven to make it a day of labour, except those 
who minister at the altar. " The priests under the 
law profane the Sabbath and are blameless." No, 
the Sabbath is not appreciated as a day of rest. There 
was no day in Paradise to be compared with that 
" seventh day which God blessed and sanctified, be- 
cause that in it he rested from all his work which he 
created and made." Light was never more beautiful, 
nor sounds more melodious, than when Eden was first 
lighted by the dawn of this day of rest, and listened to 
the voice that blessed the first-born Sabbath. Nor 
was the benediction recalled after ungrateful man had 
disobeyed his Maker. Man was cursed and made to 
toil in the sweat of his brow ; woman was cursed, and 
her sorrows multiplied; the ground was cursed, and 
doomed to thorns ; but no curse alighted on this day 
of rest. " The Sabbath was made for man." Amid 
the deep depression and unmingled darkness of the 
fall, this day still remained, the unobscured, unequi- 
vocal pledge of some distant though then unknown 
good. 

The Sabbath may also be regarded as pre-eminently 
the means of intellectual advancement. It is worthy 



THE SAHBATH. 275 

of remark that the original law ordaining the Sabbath, 
contains no explicit injunction that it be a day of reli- 
gious observances, unless it be contained in the 
phraseology which requires that it be kept holy. Nor 
is there any injunction in relation to the religious exer- 
cises of the day in the Old Testament, except that a 
burnt offering of two lambs were on that day added 
to the morning and evening sacrifices. Reason itself 
teaches us that if God has reserved one day in seven 
as a sacred rest, portions of it at least ought to be 
occupied in religious services. Hence we find, that 
under the old dispensation, God set apart the entire 
tribe of Levi, one twelfth of the Hebrew nation, not 
merely to perform the rites and sacrifices which the 
ritual enjoined, but to diffuse over the great mass of 
the people religious and moral instruction. In sketch- 
ing the characters and fortunes of the different tribes, 
their great lawgiver says, of Levi, "let thy Urim and 
thy Thummim be with thy holy one ; they have ob- 
served thy word and kept thy covenant ; they shall 
teach Jacob thy judgments and Israel thy law." To 
them was the custody of the sacred volume consigned, 
with the ark of the covenant ; and they were required 
to gather the people together periodically, "men, 
"women, and children, and the stranger within their 
gates, that they may hear, and learn, and fear the 
Lord their God, and observe to do all the words of 
his law.'' Hence, when Nehemiah assembled the Jews, 
after their return from the captivity, and restored their 
religious worship, " Ezra the scribe brought the book 
of the law before the congregation, and read therein 
from morning until mid-day. So they read in the 
book of the law distinctly, and gave the sense, and 
caused the people to understand the reading." They 
analysed the word of God, and expounded it at large, 
and showed its import and meaning. And the same 



276 THE SABBATH. 

usage prevailed under the New Testament. The 
Saviour established an order of men, whose peculiar 
office and employment were to teach and instruct the 
people in the great truths and duties of a supernatural 
revelation ; to call up their attention ; to give them 
just apprehensions of what God has revealed, and to 
enforce upon them the obligations of his gospel. If 
you turn to the New Testament, you will find that 
this service was performed, regularly and specially, 
on each returning Lord's-day. And this is one of 
the great peculiarities of revealed religion, and one of 
the distinguished blessings of the Sabbath. Ministers 
of religion are indeed found in every community, 
pagan as well as Christian. Wherever idols are wor- 
shipped, there are altars and priests ; there are sooth- 
sayers and diviners. But their duties are confined to 
the performance of religious ceremonies. They never 
attempt the religious and moral instruction of the 
great mass of the people, and never desire it. But 
the Sabbath of the Scriptures is devoted to different 
ends. In the performance of its appropriate duties in 
Christian lands, every man becomes a learner, and 
derives his instructions from the best and most impor- 
tant sources. He hears the holy Scriptures ; he listens 
to the instructions and counsels of wisdom from the 
house of God; he occupies a place in the school of 
Christ, and becomes familiar with subjects that inte- 
rest his mind, — that elicit thought and inquiry, and 
induce no small degree of mental discipline and capa- 
city for intellectual effort. Ignorance and barbarism 
form no part of the character of men who revere the 
Lord's day. You cannot consign to intellectual ob- 
scurity, a community that is subjected to the illumi- 
nations of the Sabbath. Carry the privileges of this 
day to the most barbarous people on the globe, and 
just in the proportion in which they are subjected to 



THE SABBATH. 277 

its influence, are they elevated from intellectual degra- 
dation. It would probably strike us with surprise to 
be informed how large a portion of men exists, 
whose only opportunity of information is derived from 
the Sabbath. If there is an exception to be made 
from the general spirit of this remark, it is in favour 
of the daily press ; and for this reason do I look upon 
those who conduct it, as sharing with the pulpit no 
common responsibility. I would say more upon the 
importance of the Sabbath in this particular, should I 
not appear unduly to magnify mine office. If a minis- 
ter of the gospel is laboriously devoted to his own 
intellectual and moral culture, the Sabbath, constituting 
as it does one seventh part of human life, furnishes no 
contemptible opportunity for mental improvement. 
Its instructions are designed to affect the great 
mass of mankind, and address themselves equally to 
all orders and classes of men, not overlooking the 
tenderest and most docile age ; for scarcely do children 
come into existence in Christian lands, than they are 
encircled with the light of Sabbaths. There is some- 
thing too, in the kind of instruction which the Sabbath 
communicates that has the happiest effect on the 
human mind. It relates to themes which call the 
soul away from the bustle of the world, to contemplate 
the wonderful works of God in creation, providence 
and redemption. It casts a veil over what is seen, 
and uncovers to the eye of the mind what is unseen. 
It throws back into oblivion the lying vanities of 
sense and time, and brings forward the permanent 
realities of eternity, every where disclosing facts, prin- 
ciples and results which arrest the wandering intellect, 
and are fitted to expand and exalt it forever. Many 
a sleeping genius, reposing within the curtains of its 
own unconscious powers, has been awakened to hope 
and action by the instructions of the sanctuary ; and 



278 THE SABBATH. 

many a germ of thought, which otherwise had wasted 
its fragrance on the air, has taken root and bloomed 
on this consecrated soil. It were a curious, but not 
unprofitable, inquiry to institute, How many well edu- 
cated men in Christian lands, have received the first 
impulse and suggestion in their lofty career from the 
instructions of the Sabbath ? Exclusive immersion in 
the perplexities and cupidity of secular vocations 
debases the intellectual character; and it is only by 
being conversant with objects more exalted, that the 
mind projects her noblest achievements. I am per- 
suaded more is accomplished, directly or indirectly, 
by the various institutions of the Sabbath, in enlighten- 
ing the great mass of mind, than is accomplished in 
any other way, and that it is no undeserved commen- 
dation of it to say, that it is the day of light to this 
benighted world. 

The Sabbath also lies at the foundation of all sound 
morality. Morality flows from principle. " Out of 
the heart are the issues of life." Let the principles 
of moral obligation become relaxed, and the practice 
of morality will not long survive the overthrow. No 
man can preserve his own morals; no parent can 
preserve the morals of his children, without the im- 
pressions of religious obligation. If you can induce a 
community to doubt the genuineness and authenticity 
of the Scriptures ; to question the reality and obHga- 
tions of natural religion; to hesitate in deciding 
whether there be any such thing as virtue, or vice ; 
whether there be an eternal state of retribution beyond 
the grave ; or whether there exists any such being as 
God ; you have broken down the barriers of moral 
virtue, and hoisted the flood-gates of immorality and 
crime. I need not say, that when a people have once 
done this, they can no longer exist as a tranquil and 
happy people. Every bond that holds society together 



THE SABBATH. 2iV 

would be ruptured ; fraud and treachery would take 
the place of confidence between man and man ; the 
tribunals of justice would be scenes of bribery and 
injustice ; avarice, perjury, ambition and revenge 
would walk through the land, and render it more Uke 
the dwelling of savage beasts, than the tranquil abode 
of civilized and Christianized men. If there is an 
institution which opposes itself to this progress of 
human degeneracy, and throws a shield before the 
interests of moral virtue in our thoughtless and way- 
ward world, it is the Sabbath. In the fearful struggle 
between virtue and vice, notwithstanding the power- 
ful auxiliaries which wickedness finds in the bosoms 
of men, and in the seductions and influence of popular 
example, wherever the Sabbath has been suffered to 
live, the trembling interests of moral virtue have 
always been revered and sustained. One of the 
principal occupations of this day is to illustrate and 
enforce the great principles of sound morality. Where 
this sacred rest is preserved inviolate, you behold a 
nation convened one day in seven for the purpose of 
acquainting themselves with the best moral principles 
and precepts. And it cannot be otherwise than that 
the authority of moral virtue, under such auspices, 
should be acknowledged and felt. We may not at 
once perceive the eifects which this weekly observance 
produces. Like most moral causes, it operates slowly ; 
but it operates surely, and gradually weakens the 
power and breaks the yoke of profligacy and sin. 
No villain regards the Sabbath. No vicious family 
regards the Sabbath. No immoral community regards 
the Sabbath. The holy rest of this ever-memorable 
day is a barrier which is always broken down, before 
men become giants in sin. Blackstone, in his Com- 
mentaries on the Laws of England, remarks, that "A 
corruption of morals usually follows a profanation 

S4 



280 THE SABBATH. 

of the Sabbath." It is an observation of Lord Chief 
Justice Hale, that " Of all the persons who were 
convicted of capital crimes while he was upon the 
bench, he found a few only who would not confess, 
on inquiry, that they began their career of wickedness 
by a neglect of the duties of the Sabbath, and vicious 
conduct on that day." The prisons in our own land 
could probably tell us that they have scarcely a soli- 
tary tenant who had not broken over the restraints 
of the Sabbath before he was abandoned to crime. 
You may enact laws for the suppression of immorality ; 
but the secret and silent power of the Sabbath con- 
stitutes a stronger shield to the vital interests of the 
community, than any code of penal statutes that ever 
was enacted. The Sabbath is the keystone of the 
Temple of Virtue, which, however defaced, will sur- 
vive many a rude shock so long as this foundation 
remains firm. 

The Sabbath may also be regarded as a distinguished 
means of national prosperity. The God of heaven 
has said, " Them that honour me I will honour." 
You will not often find a notorious Sabbath-breaker a 
permanently prosperous man. A Sabbath-breaking 
community is never a prosperous, happy community. 
Such a man, such a community provokes the dis- 
pleasure of God, and draws down his judgments. 
When the Athenians recalled their celebrated genera] 
Alcibiades from an important expedition, it was be- 
cause the night before his departure, he had cast 
public reproach and contempt on the gods of his 
country. " If thou turn away thy foot,'^ said the 
God of the Hebrews, " if thou turn away thy foot 
from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on my 
holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, the holy of 
the Lord, honourable, and shalt honour him, not 
doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own plea- 



THE SABBATH. 281 

sure, nor speaking thine own words ; then shalt thou 
deUght thyself in the Lord, and I will cause thee to 
ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee 
with the heritage of Jacob thy father." Elsewhere 
he says, " If ye will diligently hearken unto me, to 
bring in no burden through the gates of this city on 
the Sabbath-day, but hallow the Sabbath-day to do 
no work therein ; then shall there enter into the gates 
of this city kings and princes sitting upon the throne 
of David, ridhig in chariots and on horses, they and 
their princes, the men of Judah and the inhabitants 
of Jerusalem, and this city shall remain for ever." 
There are a multitude of unobserved influences which 
the Sabbath exerts upon the temporal welfare of men. 
It promotes the spirit of good order and harmony ; it 
elevates the poor from want ; it transforms squalid 
wretchedness ; it imparts self-respect and elevation 
of character ; it promotes softness and civility of 
manners ; it brings together the rich and the poor 
upon one common level in the house of prayer ; it 
purifies and strengthens the social affections, and 
makes the family circle the centre of allurement and 
the source of instruction, comfort, and happiness. 
Like its own divine religion, it " has the promise of 
the life that now is, and that which is to come." I 
see not how men can afford to dispense with the 
Sabbath, whatever their condition in the world. It 
is said that a late distinguished statesman, when tra- 
velling over New England, and observing her every- 
where scattered churches, and the order and decency 
of her Sabbaths, remarked with emphasis, " I never 
beheld such a community before. This is the glory 
of New England." No statesman of enlarged and 
comprehensive views can deny the benevolent in- 
fluence of the Sabbath. When the influence of this 
sacred rest comes to be extended from shore to 



282 THE SABBATH. 

shore 5 when its temples crown every hill and are 
the ornament of every valley ; when its humble 
supplications, and hallowed songs are heard from ten 
thousand times ten thousand assemblies of wor- 
shippers; who can doubt that its weekly return to 
this wide world will be entertained as "angels' 
visits/^ though neither "few," nor "far between." 
Who can doubt that those divine judgments which 
so often complete the ruin of a people, would be 
mitigated and withdrawn ? There is a beautiful 
representation of this thought by a far-famed, though 
eccentric orator, which it is impossible for me to give, 
except very imperfectly, because I do it only from 
memory. The city of London contains about a thou- 
sand churches. "'When I approach the city of 
London," said the late John Randolph, " I sometimes 
feel that I am approaching a place devoted to destruc- 
tion. The cry of its abominations goes up to heaven ; 
and I seem to see the tempest gathering over it. 
But then again, I look at her thousand spires that 
penetrate the clouds, and see them conducting off its 
fury." 

There is another consideration of still weightier im- 
port, wliich I may not suppress. The Sabbath is the 
great means of perpetuating the knowledge of the 
true religion. Few persons, if any, are universal scep- 
tics. All nations have some religious impressions, be 
they ever so erroneous. The Sabbath was originally 
instituted by God in commemoration of his own exist- 
ence as the Creator of the world, and for the purpose 
of being a perpetual testimony against the worship of 
idols. It was subsequently instituted in commemora- 
tion of the deliverance of the nation of Israel out of 
Egyptian bondage, and as a token of their vocation 
as his chosen people. " Surely, my Sabbaths ye shall 
keep, for it is a sign between me and you, that you 



THE SABBATH. 2S3 

may know that I am the Lord who hath sanctified 
you." Subsequently the observance of it was en- 
forced as a commemoration of the resm-rection of the 
Saviour. The Patriarchal, the Jewish, and the Chris- 
tian Sabbath all unite in the same design, and are 
now all concentrated in the last named day. This 
day commemorates the three great facts that distin- 
guish the true religion from paganism, the church 
from the world, and the way of salvation by Jesus 
Christ, to the exclusion of every other way. The 
mere existence of this day is a public proof of these 
three facts. If these three facts, the creation of the 
world, the calling of the Hebrew nation as God's pe- 
culiar people, and the resurrection of the Saviour, can 
be established, the rehgion that is founded upon them 
must be of divine origin. Now the weekly observance 
of this day of rest transmits these facts through all the 
generations of men. It is a sign between God and 
man, recurring every week. Just as coins and pillars, 
and monuments, and the festal days which commemo- 
rate some remarkable epoch in a nation's history, are 
signs and proofs of the events they commemorate, so 
is the Sabbath a standing, public proof of these great 
facts. We should never have heard of the Sabbath 
but for the events which it commemorates. When 
we speak of it, we recur to the reasons of its original 
institution. When our children inquire why it is set 
apart, we tell them ; and when their children make the 
same inquiry, they have the same answer ; and in that 
answer have an epitome of the evidence in favour of 
the only true religion. Wherever this day of rest is 
duly observed therefore, it is the great preservative 
against idolatry, polytheism, and all false religions. 
Wherever it is observed, there, and there only is to be 
found the knowledge of the one only living and true 
God, of the existence of his church on the earth, and 
24* 



284 THE SABBATH. 

of her salvation through the great Mediator. But for 
this testimony, we see not how the knowledge of the 
true religion would have been preserved in the earth. 
If you find a people strangers to the Sabbath, you may 
be confident they are without God in the world. 
When France abolished the Sabbath, she declared 
there was no God but reason, and no hereafter. You 
may wander at the present day over the far-famed 
cemetery of her metropolis, and read the numerous 
inscriptions upon tomb stones erected at that melan- 
choly period, death is an eternal sleep ! The 
same result will follow wherever the same experiment 
shall be made. The nation that disowns the Sabbath 
is necessarily a nation of infidels and atheists. Look 
where you will, either among individuals, families, or 
communities, and if the Sabbath is a desolation, there 
you will find a gradual and certain decay from true 
religion to infidelity and paganism. Let the Sabbath 
be forgotten for twenty years in this favoured land, 
and you will have no necessity of going to India, or 
the Southern Ocean to find paganism, for we ourselves 
will have become a nation of pagans. Blot out the 
Sabbath and no longer will the Bible lead men to re- 
pentance and salvation. No longer will the silver 
clarion of the gospel " proclaim liberty to the captives 
and the opening of the prison doors to them that are 
bound.'' No longer will the voice of supplication 
ascend from this ruined world to draw from heaven 
the blessings bestowed by the hearer of prayer. No 
longer will the Spirit of truth and grace dwell with 
men, to dissipate their darkness, and make the desert 
like Eden, and the wilderness like the garden of the 
Lord. No longer will ordinances quicken, or the soul 
be comforted, or mercy be triumphant. Darkness 
will cover the earth and gross darkness the people. 
Sin will reign. Satan, the great enemy of God and 



THE SABBATH. 285 

man will lay waste this fair creation ; will walk to and 
fro through the earth in all the phrenzy of his long- 
wished for usurpation, and death and hell will follow 
in his train. 

May we not then affirm the obligations of the world 
to the Bible for its Sabbath ? As a man of the world, 
I venerate the Sabbath. I would not be the agent in 
the destruction of this day of rest for all that earth 
can give. It would indeed have little to bestow, 
when all that is illuminating and pure, elevating and 
noble, serene and holy has become thus exiled from 
among men. That man has lived too long, who has 
survived the extinction of the Sabbath. My young 
friends, does not this day of light, and mercy, and hope, 
deserve respect ? Does it bear no stamp of divinity ? 
The great Lord of the Sabbath bids you rest on that 
sacred day. On that sacred day he bids "reason, 
which, amid the bustle of the week, has been jostled 
from her throne, resume her sway. He calls con- 
science from the retirement into which she had been 
driven by the spirit of gain, or the strife of party.'^ 
And he awakes all the tenderness of the heart, touches 
its sympathies, and opens it to the sweet influences of 
his love. Never does the world of nature more de- 
lightfully co-operate with the world of grace than on 
this sacred day. Never does the dew fall in sweeter 
silence, nor the vapours ascend more softly. Never 
does the kingdom of providence smile more signifi- 
cantly than on the observance, or frown more fearfully 
than on the violations, of this day of rest. No man is 
the loser by keeping this day holy. it is enough 
to sicken one's heart to survey the immoralities that 
are engendered by the neglect and abuse of this day ! 
Among the causes which diminish the appropriate 
influence of the Sabbath in this land, are the rapid 
growth of our large cities, the influx of a foreign 



286 THE SABBATH. 

population from popish countries, the Umited exten- 
sion of the Christian ministry, the cupidity of moneyed 
and husiness corporations, the example of the rich, 
the influence of the government, the want of parental 
authority, the thoughtlessness of young men, and the 
desecration of the day by many of the professed peo- 
ple of God. And yet as a nation, I cannot feel that 
we are a community of Sabbath-breakers. With the 
single and melancholy exception of the post-office 
department, the public departments of business are all 
closed on this sacred day. The custom house, the 
banks, the insurance offices, the public offices at the 
seat of government, the courts of justice, the mercan- 
tile houses, the shops of business and labour are closed 
one day in seven. And well may we feel that this is 
an unspeakable blessing. It would be an insupporta- 
ble grief and burden, were it otherwise. And yet is 
the sin of Sabbath-breaking becoming more and more 
apparent, in the land. Notwithstanding the strong 
barriers erected to protect this sacred observance, 
there is reason to fear that the irresistible flood of 
business and pleasure will roll over this great institu- 
tion. On the behalf of this holy day therefore, I 
solicit your example and your influence, wherever you 
may be, and as long as you shall live. It is entitled 
to your reverence and love. You have nothing you 
can substitute in its place. Despise its guidance, 
reject its consolations, refuse its hopes, extinguish its 
light, and you are buried in cheerless gloom. If you 
would that those who come after you should rise up 
and call you blessed; if you would embalm your 
names in the grateful remembrance of coming genera- 
tions, continue the exemplary and fearless guardians 
of the Christian Sabbath, and transmit its blessings to 
distant futurity. On you devolves the sacred charge 
of extending and perpetuating the unappreciated 



THE SABBATH. 287 

blessings of this holy day. Should older men become 
demoralized; should grave senators trample on this 
institution of heaven's wisdom and mercy ; there is a 
redeeming spirit in the yomig. I repeat the thought, 
let it be one of the great principles of your conduct, 
wherever and whatever you may be, to uphold the 
authority and plead the cause of this holy institution. 
Let no change of condition, or place, or pressure of 
business, tempt you to profane the Sabbath. No one 
external observance will exert so powerful an influ- 
ence on your moral character as a scrupulous and 
cheerful regard to the Lord's day. You cannot 
become abandoned while you revere the Sabbath. 
You cannot become useless members of society, so 
long as you regard the Sabbath. You cannot put 
yourselves beyond the reach of hope and heaven, so 
long as you treasure up this one command, " Remem- 
ber the Sabbath day to keep it holy." 



LECTUKE XIII. 

THE INFLUENCE OF THE BIBLE ON HUMAN 
HAPPINESS. 

The Bible possesses an unmeasured pre-eminence in 
the influence it exerts in promoting human happiness. 
If the world is indebted to a supernatural revelation 
for its language and its letters ; for its history and its 
literature : for its laws and its liberties; for its social 
institutions and the mitigation of its more public cala- 
mities ; for its morality and religious knowledge ; for 
a religion that satisfies the conscience, renovates the 
heart, and fits the soul for heaven ; for a standard of 
excellence and loftiness of character, to which it must 
otherwise have been a stranger ; for the divine power 
which accompanies its truths, as well as for the benign 
and hallowed influences of its day of rest ; then has 
the great book of which we have spoken, conferred 
unspeakably greater benefits on the world, than any 
other — nay, than all other books. But I do not pur- 
pose to illustrate the leading thought of the present 
lecture, by recapitulating the substance of that which 
has, already, I fear, been too greatly extended. 

Some of the ancients, indeed, endeavoured to form 
the mind to virtue, but it was a virtue based on inte- 
rest, or a vain love of approbation. The " honestum,'' 
2S8 



HUMAN HAPPINESS. 2S9 

or " TO KaXov " of the Greek and Roman philosophers is 
defined by Aristotle to be that which is praiseworthy : 
and by Plato that which is pleasant, or profitable. 
Their virtue had no broader foundation than the hopes 
and desires of the present life. Some of them appear- 
ed to have a wish to benefit their fellow men, and to 
be in earnest in their researches after the truth. To 
such minds, what a relief would the perusal of this 
book have afforded, while it clearly disclosed that for 
which they had so long been seeking, and enabled 
them to exchange the distant glimpses they had ob- 
tained, for the full light revealed in lines that could 
leave no doubt of their heavenly origin ! How would 
they, had they been taught of God, have thrown their 
poor speculations to the winds, and recognized the virtue 
for which they had so anxiously sighed, in the divine 
precepts ! But it was not granted them. They lived 
in error and darkness, for the day-spring from on high 
had not yet arisen upon their land. 

Sinful emotions are the source of disquietude, dis- 
satisfaction, remorse, and misery. Envy and unkind- 
ness, suspicion and jealousy, lawless appetites, malig- 
nant and stormy passions, infuriated rage, reciprocated 
treachery, mutual crimination and bitterness, what so 
much as these distract the heart, and dry up its joys ? 
There is nothing that can make such a mind happy. 
Perturbed and unhallowed affections form no incon- 
siderable part of the misery of that world, where the 
worm does not die, and the fire is not quenched. 
Angels could not be happy in heaven, when their 
bosoms became such a " troubled sea " as this. Our 
first parents must be doomed to a life of toil, to a 
world of thorny care and the grave, when they yield- 
ed to such a spirit. Ahab, on the throne of Israel, 
" refuses to eat bread," because he could not possess 
himself of the vineyard of Naboth. Haman, in high 



290 INFLUENCE UPON 

favour at the court of Persia, makes himself miserable 
because, " Mordecai the Jew, sat at the king's gate." 
Who can feel himself at peace when such passions 
reign in the soul? and where is the bosom in which 
they may not be found, unless it has been purified by 
the power of the gospel ? Wealth, pleasure, and fame, 
are the three idols of this world, and the love of these, 
the predominant passions of the heart. And yet they 
are the most contentious, mischievous, debasing pas- 
sions, and the most prolific source of individual, social, 
and public calamity. Vanity and ostentation with- 
out, are very apt to be the index of poverty and 
wretchedness within. The rich, the voluptuous, the 
ambitious, the great, are not the men who are happy. 
Marcus Crassus antedating his fall by grasping at the 
wealth of Parthia, Tiberius concealing his cruelty and 
lust amid the retreats of Caprsea, and Alexander on 
the throne of the world, weeping because there was 
not another world to conquer, are melancholy proofs, 
that amid joys like these, and in the highest gratifica- 
tion of the unhallowed passions which this world can 
furnish, men not only never can be happy, but may 
and must be miserable. 

There is nothing that allays and cures this febrile 
action of human depravity like the influence of the 
Bible. Let any one compare the present state of hu- 
man society, notwithstanding all its imperfections, 
with its true character only a few centuries past, and 
he cannot fail to see how many exciting causes of hu- 
man misery it has subdued ; how many a heart it has 
kept from acting out,and giving unrestrained license 
to, its irritated selfishness ; how often it has held the 
fierce passions of men in check, and extinguished the 
flame which otherwise would have burned with in- 
domitable phrenzy. Afl'ections that are bland and 
virtuous, are uniformly the source of tranquillity and 



HUMAN HAFriNESS. 291 

joy. They are like " rivers of water in a dry place/* 
They are living fountains within, springing up to 
purify and refresh the mind. The Bible alone tells 
us in what true happiness consists, and how it may be 
attained. It is not without reason that it admonishes 
us of the danger of mere earthly comforts, because the 
very desire after them is ordinarily so intense as to be- 
come the source of inward corruption, and in their en- 
joyment we forget our highest good. I have been 
not a little interested in the fact, that the Saviour, at 
the commencement of his public ministry, and in the 
first paragraph of his first discourse, should have so 
entirely countervailed the commonly received notions 
of men, in regard to the sources of true happiness. He 
who formed the human mind, is acquainted with its 
large desires, and is familiar with every avenue to its 
joys, has said, " Blessed are the poor in spirit ; blessed 
are they that mourn ; blessed are the meek ; blessed 
are they which do hunger and thirst after righteous- 
ness ; blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see 
God." What a rebuke to the spirit of this world! 
What a contrast to the restless solicitude of grasping 
covetousness ; to the dissipation of the gay ; to the 
resentment of the hnplacable ; to the degradation of 
the impure ; and to those senseless joys of ambition, 
when some new flame ignites its hopes to quench 
them in darkness ! The Bible distinctly teaches us, 
that he is the happiest man, who possesses most of its 
peculiar spirit and character. Not because he has the 
most wealth, for he may be poor, and, like his Divine 
Master, " have not where to lay his head." Not be- 
cause he "seeks honour from men," but because he 
seeks " that which cometh from God only." Not be- 
cause he is a voluptuary, but a Christian. Not be- 
cause he has the greatest capacity, but because he 
possesses an internal spirit, a state of mind and heart 

25 



292 INFLUENCE UPON 

which prepare him to appreciate, and qualify him to 
enjoy, all that is worth enjoying, and to a degree that 
is impossible to a mind less pure. " To the upright, 
there ariseth light in the midst of darkness.'^ In the 
gloomiest wilderness, he has a guide that accompanies 
and cheers him with encouragement. No danger can 
appal him, no sorrow crush, no doubt depress him. 
Darkness becomes day, the bitterest flower yields him 
honey, seeming evil turns to certain good. He utters 
no complaint, because he knows his lot is so much 
better than he deserves ; he yields not to fear, for he 
is well assured that by a thousand contrasts and com- 
binations, " all things work together for good to them 
that love God.'^ Others he sees travelling a gayer 
road, faring sumptuously, arrayed in rich apparel ; but 
he does not repine, does not envy them. He is con- 
tent that his path should be through the desert, and 
over the rough places, so that he has peace and joy 
within. One of the unfailing sources of happiness, 
for which we are indebted to the Scriptures, is the 
spirit and character which it requires and imparts. 

Man is formed for activity. Exertion is the true 
element of a well regulated mind. If undisturbed by 
the implements of husbandry, the soil becomes hard 
and impenetrable. Its bosom is not open to the dew, 
or rain, or to the vivifying influence of the sun. The 
scattered seed finds no root, but is driven by every 
wind that blows over the surface. No verdure is 
seen to greet the eye, or tree bearing fruit to cheer 
the careless husbandman ; but weeds, rank and dan- 
gerous to man, spring up from the soil that was 
destined for his support and comfort. So it is with 
the mind of man, when, locked up and deprived of 
healthful exertion, he lives for himself alone, and only 
the most sordid passions spring up within his bosom. 
Benevolence has no room in a soul so narrow ; com- 



HUMAN HAPPINESS. 293 

passion and sympathy are stifled, and all the nobler 
faculties languish. Almost the only relief from un- 
mingled misery in the indulgence of some of the evil 
propensities of our nature, is found in the fact that 
they produce excitement and incite to exertion. That 
God who brings good out of evil, has so ordered it 
that in giving rise to action and effort, even these 
propensities produce no small amount of good, though 
aiming at a very different end. Avarice and love of 
wealth set commerce in motion, provide labour and 
sustenance for the poor, bring the ends of the earth 
near to each other, and spread abroad civilization and 
Christianity. The heathen of the isles and of this 
continent might still have been unknown, still deprived 
of the blessings of the gospel, had not the ambitious 
spirit of adventure quickened the ingenuity and 
winged the sails of the navigator. The love of fame 
may be the only motive that inspires the tongue of 
the orator and the pen of the writer ; but God gives 
them a destiny different from what they proposed to 
themselves. Their names may be lost amid the 
rushing whirlpool of time ; but their words and their 
works may break the chains of nations, carry intel- 
ligence over the face of the earth, and their influence 
be felt throughout eternity. Mankind, in this respect, 
may be not unaptly compared to the Alchymists of 
old, who spent their lives in laborious search after 
the fabled philosopher's stone. Their unwearied 
industry failed of success, for it was directed toward 
an object that was unattainable ; yet, though misap- 
plied, it was not, as subsequent events have shown, 
without its sources of happiness to themselves, and 
benefit to the world. 

If then action in itself considered, is a source of 
happiness and a benefit to mankind, how much more 
when it is founded on intelligent and benevolent 



294 INFLUENCE UPON 

principles? Few sources of pleasure equal those 
which arise from benevolent exertion. When intelli- 
gent and benevolent principles stimulate it to action, 
then it is that the soul is enlarged and elevated, and 
the bosom opened to every kindly influence. Bene- 
volence and well doing become their own reward, 
and inducements to future efforts. The seed sown in 
such a soil brings forth fruit an hundred fold ; and a 
rich harvest in the happiness of others adds to the 
already abundant store of our own. But whence are 
intelligent and benevolent principles of action to be 
derived ? Does nature dictate them ? Have they 
been discovered by reason ? Are they found amid 
the researches of philosophy ? Are they gathered 
from observation ? Spring they up even from dear 
bought experience ? What is more obvious, than 
that the world needs a supernatural revelation, if for 
nothing else than to discover the true aim and end of 
man's existence ? It is a remark of Cicero, that 
" those who do not agree in stating what is the chief 
end, or good, must of course differ in the whole sys- 
tem of precepts for the conduct of human life.'^ And 
yet this writer informs us, that on this subject " there 
was so great a dissension among the philosophers, 
that it was almost impossible to enumerate their 
different sentiments." And hence it is that the men 
of pagan lands so rarely even professed to put forth 
their exertions for a benevolent end, and knew so 
little of the happiness arising from such an exalted 
source. Great exertions from great motives constitute 
the glory and blessedness of our nature. And nowhere 
do we learn what great exertions and great motives 
are, but from the Bible. The wisdom to guide, and 
the aliment to sustain them, are derived only from 
that great source of instruction and duty. Where on 
all the pages of pagan and infidel philosophy do we 



HUMAN HAPPINESS. 295 

read such an injunction as this: "Whether therefore 
ye eat. or drink, do all to the glory of God." Whence, 
but from that sacred book do we learn the maxim, 
so famihar to every Christian mind, " None of us 
liveth to himself, and none of us dieth to himself; but 
whether we live, we live unto the Lord, and whether 
we die, we die unto the Lord !" He, and he alone, 
is the happy man, who has been taught to consider 
the nature and tendency of his conduct, and whether 
it will approve itself to God, and advance the designs 
of his truth and love in the world ; who makes his 
will the rule, and his glory the end ; and whose 
governing aim and study are to please him, and show 
forth his praise. Such a man is happy, because he 
lives to do good. His daily employment is his daily 
joy. His " meat is to do the will of him that sent 
him, and finish his work. He may be as great a 
sufferer as Paul, and yet as happy as he. He cannot 
be miserable, so long as he acts from the principle of 
communicative goodness. No matter where his par- 
ticular sphere of occupation, he is happy. His aim 
is high, and he has an object which sustains, and an 
impulse which encourages him. His anticipations are 
joyous, his reflections tranquil. He looks backward 
with pleasure, and forward with hope. He has the 
joy of an approving conscience. He has not buried 
his talent, nor is he a cumberer of the ground. He 
lives to bless the world. And when he dies, he be- 
queaths to it his counsels, his example, his bounty and 
his prayers. Another source of enjoyment for which 
we are indebted to the Bible, therefore, is the habit of 
benevolent exertion. 

It is in vain to turn our eyes from the sad spectacle 
of human misery. We cannot persuade ourselves that 
it does not exist, nor arm ourselves with a stoical insen- 
sibility to evils which are every where around us, 
25* 



296 INFLUENCE UPON 

and which we ourselves feel. If you open your eyes 
upon the annals of time, you see an unbroken series 
of existences who appear for a few days or hours, 
on this scene of action, and then pass away. The 
cradle is suifused with their tears, and, in a little while, 
the places that so lately knew them, are hung around 
with the emblems of their dissolution. And between 
the cradle and the grave, what mournful scenes fill up 
the drama of human life ! What hours of sadness 
and gloom ! What painful diseases, what dishearten- 
ing discouragements, what disappointments and losses ; 
what defeated hopes and withered honours ; what 
depression and melancholy ; what malignity of ene- 
mies and fickleness of friends ; what unkindness, dark- 
ness, and fear ; what individual and domestic calamity, 
and public distress ; what consternation and dismay ; 
all heightened and aggravated by the distressing doubt 
and uncertainty as to what shall be on the morrow ! 
Trials like these befall us at every step through life. 
No hour can we be free from the fear that what we 
value most on earth may be snatched from us. In this 
respect man seems subjected to a severer sentence 
than the rest of the natural world, and the curse of 
death falls with a heavier weight upon him. The trees 
and plants grow up to their full height, fill up the 
measure of their years, and then decay and fall. Flow- 
ers bloom through their passing life, and then wither 
and die according to the laws of their nature. Birds 
and beasts live, for the most part until age creeps upon 
them, and unless they are destroyed by the hand of 
man, are rarely cut off by disease. The brute crea- 
tion have no thought, no fear of evil. Their life is 
not embittered by the expectation that they must die ; 
they have no knowledge beyond the present and the 
past ; their hopes and their fears gather nothing from 
their experience which may reveal to them the mor- 



HUMAN HAPPINESS. 297 

row ; but they live in contented ignorance and apathy, 
and at death sink into the deep, never-ending night of 
annihilation. 

But it is not so with man. Man perishes from the 
cradle to the grave; and " suffers a thousand deaths 
in fearing one." He alone is aware of the dangers 
that threaten him, and they are every where about 
his path. " Man dieth and wasteth away, yesi, man 
giveth up the ghost, and where is he ?" Who has 
not sympathized with the Persian poet, when he said, 

" I passed the burying-place, and wept sorely, 

To think how many of my friends were in the mansions of the 

dead. 
And in an agony of grief, I cried out. Where are they ? 
And Echo gave the answer, and said, Where are they P" 

How often do we grieve over the destruction of our 
fondest hopes ! When heart is bound up in heart, 
how oft is the tie rent suddenly asunder, the sweetest 
fellowships severed, and the joys of the happiest life 
veiled by the gloom of the grave ! Life and death 
seem to walk hand in hand ; and even while we are 
rejoicing in the presence of the one, comes his stern 
companion, and casts a blight upon our prospects. 
Amid those very scenes where we have witnessed the 
joyful career of one we love, we are called to behold 
him pine in sickness and suffer in death. The hand 
which has performed for us so many acts of kindness, 
is now reached out to us for aid that we cannot give ; 
and the voice, whose tones were such music to the 
ear, can now scarcely be heard, or heard only in sounds 
of distress. All which formerly made the delight of 
our hearts, now makes up their anguish. And if in 
hope of soothing their dying pillow, we summon 
strength, and stand by to receive the last sigh, to return 
the last weak pressure of the hand, to watch the ad- 
vance of death as he steals from the cold limbs and 



298 INFLUENCE UPON 

brow to the heart, and freezes there the feeble current 
of life and then gaze upon the lifeless form for another 
breath, another motion, which, alas ! we shall not hear, 
nor see ; we feel, for the moment, as though this grief, 
this overwhelming sorrow, could not be supported. 
When, too, after the first hour of anguish is past, and 
we return to that cold clay to put it in order for the 
tomb, to look still again upon its changed lineaments, 
and to feel that it was but yesterday and there was a 
bloom upon this cheek, a lustre in this eye, a voice 
upon these lips ; we are mourners afresh — we are 
silent — the sad picture is all before us ! 

Seal up this sacred volume, and I see not whence 
the light dawns to cheer this sombre picture. But for 
the Bible, man would be placed in a grade of happi- 
ness far below the brutes that perish. Better be any 
thing than rational, without the religion of the Bible. 
The Scriptures inform me that these evils have a cause. 
They all come from the hand of God. " I make 
peace, I create evil, I the Lord do all these things.'' 
Chance and fate have no place in the government of 
" the God only wise." Sorrow is designed ; nor is 
the design malignant or unkind. The unseen hand 
that inflicts these trials is as benevolent as it is wise, 
and the being who dispenses them is as far above all 
other beings in goodness, as he is in power. We learn 
from the Bible too, that they have a moral cause ; 
that they are the rebuke of the Holy One for our 
iniquity ; that they are the discipline of a heavenly 
Parent, and designed to bring back his wayward chil- 
dren to their forsaken God. And when rebellious man 
sees and feels this truth, his soul is subdued to sub- 
mission, to tranquillity, to peace, and under the heavi- 
est calamity he looks upward and says, " It is the 
Lord, let him do what seemeth him good !" And 
this, of itself is the source of abounding consolations 



HUMAN HAPPINESS. 299 

How often in our intercourse with mankind do we 
cheerfully submit to present pain and evil, when coun- 
selled to it by those in whose wisdom and benevo- 
lence we have confidence ! Extend this principle, so 
often and so beautifully illustrated in the word of 
God, to all the evils of the present hfe, and we have 
that feeling of quiet, trusting confidence which sup- 
ports the believer under all the evils which an all-wise 
Father is pleased to lay upon him. It is a principle, 
prolific in consolations to the mourner ; and well may 
be the confidence and joy of the world and of the 
universe. " The Lord reigneth, let the earth rejoice 5 
let the multitude of the isles be glad thereof." 

And what shall we say of the hopes and prospects 
by which the Bible cheers the hearts of the bereaved? 
What rather may we not say? Is it blind conjecture 
which the Scriptures reveal respecting the state of 
departed man ? Is there no life to come ? no great 
resurrection ? no comforter to arrest the current of 
" mourning, lamentation and wo,'^ after the dust we 
love has been deposited in the tomb ? When reminded 
keenly of our loss we exclaim, ' Shall we not meet 
again ? is this parting for ever?' is there nothing in 
the Bible that can answer the agonizing inquiry ? 
When we wander as it were along the borders of 
that vast ocean which has swallowed up our living 
treasures ; when we sit down there, and weep and 
call upon the waves of eternity to give up their dead ; 
when from the shore of time, we look and hsten over 
the vast abyss of waters, does no sound reach us ? 
To the ear of faith there is a voice. We listen, and 
our grief is allayed. " For if we believe that Jesus 
died and rose again, even so them also which sleep 
in Jesus will God bring with him." They do but 
*' sleep." They "sleep in Jesus." Death dissolves 
not their union with him. Yes, our grief is allayed, 



300 INFLUENCE UPON 

and we journey on through life consoled. No longer 
now do our thoughts wander to that mound of 
earth where their remains have been deposited. We 
look upward beyond this sphere. A happy meeting, 
a reunion for eternity hovers before us like a star, 
illumines our path, and leads us forward in joyful 
hope. 

Nowhere does the Bible look with cold indifference 
on human misery. So adapted is it to human sorrows, 
that its precious counsels and promises are scarcely 
intelligible, and never appreciated, except by those 
who are "chosen in the furnace of affliction." Go 
up with me to that chamber of sorrow. It is not the 
dwelling of a pagan. It is not the couch of some 
deluded disciple of Mahomet. Nor yet is it the abode 
of a mere nominal Christian. " This I know by 
experience," said she, " the days of ease and worldly 
prosperity are seldom to Christians their better days. 
So far from it, that to the praise and glory of God's 
holy name would I speak it, I have substantial reason 
to call these my better days ; these days and nights 
of pain ; these days of almost absolute confinement 
and solitude are not only my better, but my best 
days: because the Saviour condescends to be more 
present with me in them ; to manifest himself to me 
as he does not unto the world ; to stand by my bed 
of affliction, and speak kindly to my heart."* 0, 
how dark are the shadows which human reason and 
vain philosophy cast upon such scenes as these ! 
There is no such relief from sorrow as is found in the 
Bible. 

I have spoken of the consolations furnished by the 
Bible in trial and in view of the death of others. But 
we must penetrate yet deeper sorrows than these. 

* Life of Mrs. Hawkes. 



HUMAN HAPPINESS. 301 

There is an hour when we ourselves must die. If 
we find death an evil when we mark its advances 
upon those around us, what will it be when he comes 
up into our own chambers ? Who can trifle with 
this monster then ? When he invades our own pillow, 
which of us will not recoil from his approach, and 
shrink from the ravages of this king of terrors ? 
'' The sting of death is sin, and the strength of sin is 
the law.'' Death is an hour which never fails to 
bring with it the consciousness of guilt, and a sense 
of the righteousness of that pure and holy law which 
men have violated, and by which they are con- 
demned. Nor is there any thing to quiet the appre- 
hensions and soothe the alarm excited in the breasts 
of those who know not God, at the approach of this 
dread destroyer. Men who never drank into the 
spirit of the Bible, feel then that every thing on 
which they built their hopes, is about to be swept 
away, and that, " in that very day," their thoughts, 
their treasures, their grandeur, their honours, their 
little world, all perish. They have lived at a distance 
from that God who now draws near in his displeasure, 
and tremble at the thought of appearing before him 
who is so holy that he cannot look on sin. No 
knowledge of the Redeemer's person and work com- 
forts them ; no welcome impressions of his saving 
mercy are left upon the soul, and it departs in doubt 
and darkness, if not in despair. So full of darkness 
were the views of Socrates, one of the wisest and 
best of the heathens, that just before he took the fatal 
hemlock, he said, " I am going out of the world, and 
you are to continue in it ; but which of us has the 
better part, is a secret to every one but God.'' 
Volumes might be written depicting the scenes of 
anguish and horror which have been exhibited at the 
death-bed of those who have rejected the Bible. 



30^ INFLUENCE UPON 

What multitudes of dying men, burdened with the 
load of unpardoned sin, and tormented by the accu- 
sations of a guilty conscience, have exclaimed with 
one with whose closing history many of you are fami- 
liar, " 0, that I might come to that place of torment, 
that I may be sure to feel the worst, and to be freed 
from the fear of worse to come !" 

Not so the dying Christian. To him death has no 
sting ; over him the grave boasts no victory ; nor has 
the second death any power. " He knows in whom 
he has believed." His " life is hid with Christ in 
God." He has unshaken confidence that every thing 
is safe in the hands of Jesus Christ. Often have I 
seen him at that momentous hour, and heard him as 
his quivering lips commended his spirit to " him who 
loved him, and washed him in his own blood." 
Time would fail me to tell of Ignatius, of Polycarp, 
of Augustine, of Hilary, of John Huss, of Jerome 
of Prague, of Luther, of Melancthon, of Beza, of 
Patrick Hamilton, of George Wishart, of John Knox, 
of Tindal, of Bradford, of Cranmer, of Bunyan, of 
Bacon, of Robert Bruce, of Samuel Rutherford, of 
Claude, of Hervey, of Ralph Erskine, of Locke, of 
Baxter, of Matthew Henry, of Whitefield, of Edwards, 
of Brainerd, Dwight, Halyburton, Payson, Evarts, 
and a host of men of whom the world was not 
worthy, all of whom "died in faith," and sung the 
songs of salvation as they bid adieu to their earthly 
pilgrimage. The history of the church is filled with 
testimonials to the worth and blessedness of the Bible 
which have flowed from lips, which though pallid in 
death, have glowed with praise. What but this book 
of God enables the child of faith, " when flesh and 
heart fail," to say, '- Thou wilt show me the path of 
life; in thy presence is fulness of joy, and at thy right 
hand there are pleasures for ever more ?" What but 



HUMAN HAPPINESS. 303 

this prompts him to sing, " I am now ready to be 
offered, and the time of my departure is at hand. I 
have fought a good fight, I have finished my course, 
I have kept the faith ; henceforth there is laid up for 
me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the 
righteous Judge, will give me in that day, and not to 
me only, but to all them that love his appearing?" 
What but this book of grace and consolations, when 
death's icy hand chills his frame, and the grave 
unfolds its darkness and solitude, inspires the triumph, 
" death, where is thy sting ? grave, where is 
thy victory?" Not more distant are our thoughts 
from the thoughts of God, or earth from heaven, 
than are all the consolations of reason and philo- 
sophy from the consolations of the Bible to a dying 
man. 

There is one more topic which gives emphasis 
to the thought which I am endeavoring to illustrate, 
which I wish it were in my power to present in its 
native force and richness. The source and fulness 
of created good is the knowledge and enjoyment of 
God. 



•Give what thou wilt, without thee, we are poor. 
And with thee rich, take what thou wilt away." 



The mind of man is like a ship which the storm 
has dragged from her moorings and driven out to sea. 
It is tossed upon unknown waves, and has neither 
peace nor safety, until it can renew its communication 
with the shore. No sooner did it apostatize from 
God, than it was torn from its proper element, and 
separated from its proper object. Without the know- 
ledge of God, mankind are Uke children deprived of 
a father, driven along, the sport of accident, with no 
hope for the future, and no security that their present 

26 



304 INFLUENCE UPON 

happiness would endure, or their present misery end; 
Darkness would overshadow their path from the cra- 
dle to the grave. Without the knowledge of God, 
where would be those hopes which support man in 
the gloomy hours of adversity, where that gratitude 
and love that lend such a zest to his hours of joy ! 

We are not competent to appreciate the effect were 
the knowledge of God blotted out of the universe. 
There was a moment when the only created mind, 
fully capable of comprehending the fearful thought, 
seemed to feel it as an insupportable reality. And 
who can tell the feelings of that mighty mind at that 
awful moment when God hid his face from him, and 
the suffering Son looked up in vain, and exclaimed, 
" My God, my God, why hast thou forsakerf me !" 
Nearly such would be the condition of this world with- 
out the Bible. The Bible alone points the exile to his 
native land. It conducts the wandering thirsty travel- 
ler to the very fountain of Ufe. It leads the long-lost 
spirit back to God. 

But beside the support and hope which the know- 
ledge of God procures, unspeakably greater is the 
pleasure we derive from loving him. What greater 
blessing has heaven bestowed upon the human race 
than pure and amiable affections ? Of all men he is 
the most miserable who has nothing to love. His 
heart is cold, and his bosom like the desolate heath. 
Nor is there any thing that can revive and refresh his 
withered mind, until he has found an object on which 
to bestow his affections. No small portion of our 
happiness in this world arises from the love we feel 
toward those who are dear to us. We may indeed 
have affections that are not virtuous ; but the pleas- 
ures we derive from them do not deserve the name. 
We may love what is unworthy, inconstant, and 
changeful ; and then our expectations are defeated. 



HUMAN HAPPINESS. 305 

We may love what is transient and dying ; and then 
our joys are turned into grief. And yet, with all its 
fickleness and uncertainty, earth furnishes no such hap- 
piness as where heart yearns towards its fellow heart. 
In so far as their characters are faulty, the pleasure of 
our love it is true is in proportion diminished ; and 
yet with all their blemishes, the loss of their affections 
could not be easily repaired. But suppose those we 
love are exalted beyond their fellow men, endowed 
with an amiable and generous mind, gifted with a 
strength of intellect and purpose that are softened by 
benevolence and condescension, and over all these 
qualities a winning manner throws its attractive 
charms ; what delight do we experience in affection- 
ate intercourse with them ! We feel as it were, almost 
raised to their level, and enjoy a pride and gratifica- 
tion that we are esteemed worthy of their love. And 
this thought elevates us indeed, and keeps us above 
the level of the common world. And how careful 
are we to do nothing to forfeit their confidence, and 
what grief and self-reproach do we feel if we have 
forfeited it ; for conscience tells us that the folly, the 
error is all our own. What then must be the happi- 
ness of fixing the heart on God, where there is noth- 
ing unlovely, nothing fickle, nothing false or dying ! 
From our best affections toward creatures up to the 
love of God, there is a height as lofty as his ways and 
attributes are above the attributes and ways of mor- 
tals. No fear can haunt the mind that he may change, 
in his character or in his love. He is above the 
reach of accident or mutation, perfect in benevolence 
and power, and to those who trust in him is a sure 
and perpetually increasing source of joy. Men no 
longer grasp at shadows when they fix their hearts on 
God. They think of him, and are happy ; they con- 
template his nature, and their best affections and purest 



306 INFLUENCE UrON 

happiness become more exalted and more pure, the 
greater their love. Solicitude subsides into tranquillity, 
peace is invigorated to confidence, love awakes to joy, 
and not unfrequently joy to transport, at a view of 
the divine excellence and glory. And then to receive 
love for love ; to lean on the bosom of divine faithful- 
ness ; to make the Eternal God our refuge and portion 
— this is the blessedness for which the spiritual nature 
of man is formed. This is that great law of moral 
attraction by which the soul enjoys even a sort of 
sympathy with the divine nature, and participates in 
his blessedness. 

The world has no substitute for such a source of 
joy. You may be happy, my young friends, without 
power, without influence, without learning, without 
wealth ; but you cannot be happy without God. Give 
man all of this world that he desires ; multiply around 
him the gratifications of sense and pleasures of thought; 
and if he have not God for his refuge and joy, the 
day is not far distant when he will feel that he is like 
the prodigal in a far country, feeding upon husks and 
clothing himself with rags. Nothing can make you 
miserable so long as you enjoy the presence of God. 
To feel every where surrounded with Deity ; to see 
him every where, and every where enjoy him, this is 
the blessedness which the Bible is capable of impart- 
ing. Nothing separates such a mind " from the love 
of God which is in Christ Jesus his Lord.^' This 
" green earth " may be parched up, and all its sources 
of pleasure dried away ; but such a mind ranges more 
delectable mountains, and quenches the ardour of its 
desires at fountains of living water. " The Lord is 
my shepherd, I shall not want. He maketh me to lie 
down in green pastures ; he leadeth me beside the still 
waters ; he restoreth my soul." 

Such is the influence of this holy book on human 



HUMAN HAPPINESS. 307 

happiness. No matter where, or on whom its bles- 
sings descend, its legitimate influence is to make men 
happy. Wherever it finds him on this vast sea of 
trouble, however far from land, however shattered by 
the storm, it fills the torn sails of the tempest-tost, 
and wafts him to the shore. Nay, it calms the tem- 
pest. The voice of the waves is hushed by its 
power and the heaving ocean is stilled into a peaceful 
haven. 

" What an admirable thing," exclaims the great 
Montesquieu, " is the religion of Christ, which while 
it seems to have no other object than the happiness 
of the other life, constitutes all our happiness in this. 
Higher authority has said, " Godliness is profitable for 
all things ; having the promise of the life that now is, 
and that which is to come." There are few errors more 
to be regretted than that the religion of the Bible is not 
adapted to promote human happiness. Its very sacri- 
fices have more than an adequate compensation. If it 
commands us to give up self, it is only for the love of 
God ; if it teaches us to give up time, it gives us eter- 
nity in return ; and in doing this, it does not even 
diminish our happiness in time. It is a reproach to 
Christianity that its disciples are not more uniformly 
cheerful and happy. The religion of the Bible is not 
a cheerless religion. Unhappy Christians there are, 
but unhappy religion there is none. God grant, my 
young friends, that you may possess an humble piety, 
a self-denying, laborious piety, a piety that lives 
above the world and walks with God, but at the same 
time, a cheerful, happy piety. 



26* 



LECTURE XIV. 

CONCLUSION. 

We have been considering in the preceding lectures 
some of the particulars in which the world is under 
obligations to the Bible. I would cheerfully extend 
this discussion, did 1 not believe that a more protract- 
ed illustration would be an unseasonable demand upon 
the patience of my audience. It was my design to 
have detained you by the consideration of one other 
topic, and to have shown the obUgations of men to 
the Bible for a religion that satisfies the conscience 
when it is roused to that great inquiry, " How shall 
man be jnst with God ?" But as this topic has more 
than once been incidentally alluded to, and to some 
extent illustrated, I pass this evening to the concluding 
lecture. 

The design of this exercise is to request you, with- 
out any particular recapitulation on my part, to re- 
view the ground we have gone over, and in this 
review, to institute the following inquiries : 

Is NOT THE RELIGION OF THE BIBLE UNIVERSALLY 
ADAPTED TO THE CHARACTER AND CONDITION OF OUR 

RACE ? Whatever may be the varieties of his locality 
and condition, every individual of the human family 
is by nature, ignorant, depraved, subject to infirmities 
308 



CONCLUSION. 309 

and sorrows, destined to the grave, and the heir of 
immortality. The religion which he needs, and which 
alone is adapted to all the varieties of his species, and 
all the peculiarities of his condition, is one that meets 
the exigencies of his condition for both worlds. It is 
one which, while it appreciates the importance of the 
life which is to come, does not depreciate the true in- 
terests of the life that now is. It is one which, while 
it does not overlook his intellectual worth, and his so- 
cial and public relations ; his freedom, his dignity, his 
happiness, his usefulness, as a citizen of this world ; 
provides mainly for his moral purity, and the glory 
and immortality that await him at the termination of 
his earthly career. It is one which consults the claims, 
not of one class of human society merely, but of all 
classes ; not of one period of time merely, but of all 
periods ; not of one cHme merely, but of all climes ; 
not of one form of government merely, but of all forms 
of government ; not of one locality, or a limited circle, 
but of all localities, and the most enlarged circle ; not 
of one particular nation, or people, but of all nations, 
languages, and men, under the face of the whole 
heaven. We do not ask for a religion that is fitted 
for the arctic, and yet has no fitness for the antarctic 
circle ; a religion that is adapted to the language and 
manners of the east, and yet has no adaptation to those 
of the west ; but one that has in it nothing local, 
nothing restrictive, whose principles are applicable 
every where, and whose institutions may every where 
be practised. We are mainly thankful for a religion 
that consults our interests for eternity ; while, at the 
same time we need one that consults our true and per- 
manent interests for time. We need one, too, that 
consults all the peculiarities and variety of human 
condition ; one that is fitted to satisfy all the faculties 
of the soul ; one which, instead of retarding, advances 



310 CONCLUSION. 

the progress of the human mind, satisfies the con- 
science, encourages the imagination, and ennobles ail 
the natural and moral affections. Every faculty of 
the soul, as well as every individual of the race, is 
diseased and infirm, and needs some catholicon, some 
universal remedy, some specific that can operate on 
every malady, and that proves itself worthy of confi- 
dence by its actual and well attested results. 

Have we not seen that ^uch a religion is found in 
the Bible, and only there ? Just in proportion to the 
degree of practical influence which the Bible has 
exerted on the more limited or more enlarged circles 
of human society, on the intellectual, political and 
moral condition of men, on their inquiries and motives, 
on their principles and conduct, and on their enjoy- 
ments and expectations, may we discover its universal 
adaptation to the great family of man. No where are 
its effects confined to time, or place, or age, or sex, or 
condition. No climate, no degree of intellectual cul- 
ture, no form of government, however despotic or 
however free, is above, beneath, or beyond its power. 
No physical or moral constitution has proved a barrier 
to its access. The civilized European, and the savage 
Hottentot, have alike found its "yoke easy and its 
burden light." Every where and at all times, it has 
found minds to whom its regeneration was necessary 
and its Redeemer precious. Its followers are found 
in the camp and in the forum, among the rich and the 
poor, among the learned and the ignorant. It has found 
its way to the shop of the artisan, the prison of cri- 
minals, the tribunals of justice, and the thrones of 
kings.* It is a religion that is never insipid and dull, 
never grows old, or vanishes away. It is a religion 

* For the illustrations on this page, and for some of the phrase- 
ology, the author is indebted to a discourse of A. Vinet, Professor 
of Theology, iu Lausanne. 



CONCLUSION. 311 

that is never behind the spirit of the age, but always 
in advance of it, leading it onward, and inscribing on 
all its improvements, " Holiness to the Lord." Other 
things may change ; but the religion of the Bible 
never changes. What it was in the day of Christ and 
his apostles, it is now, and always will be. It has 
nothuig pliable and temporizing in its principles, and 
yet is it alike adapted to all. Every where its effects 
are the same. These things can be affirmed of no 
other reUgion, and of no system of philosophy. Other 
religions have been instituted, and flourished, and died, 
because they were adapted to the times and the spirit 
of the age. Neither paganism nor Mohammedanism 
can ever become the religion of the world. Nor can 
the religion of Zoroaster, destined as it is, to live only 
under its own native skies, and that, no longer than 
the gospel has an opportunity of superseding it. The 
Bible alone can ever become the religion of the world, 
because this alone corresponds to the universal exi- 
gencies of men, to the constantly recurring wants of 
humanity independent of accidental circumstances, 
and irrespective of place and time. Some of my most 
admiring views of the Bible arise from contemplating 
its wonderful adaptation to all times and places, and 
to every variety of character which this fallen world 
presents. The enlightened and the ignorant, the lofty 
as well as the abject, the meanest as well as the most 
splendid forms of human sin and misery, the living 
and the dying, ignorance, wickedness, sorrows and 
helplessness, which no other counsels of love and ten- 
derness can reach, are all accessible to its transform- 
ing influence and precious consolations, and while 
convinced, rebuked and humbled by its censures, are 
comforted by its hopes. 

But there is another inquiry : is not the religion 

OF THE BIBLE A BENEVOLENT RELIGION ? Is not the 



312 CONCLUSION. 

world, in every view, the better and the happier for 
this wonderful book ? Has it not exerted a favour- 
able influence upon the learning, the laws, the liberties, 
the social institutions, the morality, the holiness, the 
happiness of mankind ? Have any forms of govern- 
ment, any political systems, any theories of social 
order, any refinements of human philosophy accom- 
plished for men what the Bible has accomplished ? 
Wherever you trace its circulation, you see blessings 
every where accompanying its progress. Nothing has 
contributed so largely to the temporal comfort of man- 
kind. It has scattered the darkness of intellect ; it has 
given security to life, liberty and property ; it has im- 
parted mildness and efficacy to law ; it has elevated 
woman from the degradation of a slave ; it has set in 
motion a thousand systems of sacred charity to bless 
the poor, the diseased, the widow, the orphan, the 
blind and the dumb. It has strengthened the weak 
and confirmed the strong; it has convinced the 
thoughtless, reclaimed the wandering, comforted the. 
mourner, and directed the eye of untold millions to an 
" exceeding and eternal weight of glory.'^ Wherever 
it has come, it has been a stream of health and salva- 
tion. It professes a benevolent design ; it has openly 
pledged itself to become a blessing to the world ; and 
it has been redeeming this pledge and accomplishing 
this design, ever since it was first published to men. 
Though the experiment has not been so full and 
thorough as it will have been hereafter, it has been 
sufficiently full to evince its triumphs. Had it failed, 
how many myriads of tongues would have proclaimed 
its defeat ! Every one who looks into the Bible can 
see that its great object is to make men good, useful 
and happy. Such is the obvious design and tendency 
of its precepts, its prohibitions, its doctrines and prin- 
ciples, its institutions and privileges, its punishments 



CONCLUSION. 813 

and rewards. Whatever is pure, honest, true, lovely, 
and of good report, it encourages and requires ; while 
all that is impure, dishonest, false, unlovely and un- 
commendable, it discourages and forbids. All that 
can assimilate a creature of yesterday to his Maker, 
and prepare him for the family and fellowship of 
angels, it requires ; while all that renders him deform- 
ed and odious, that severs the bonds of moral union 
and fits him to become the companion of foul and 
miserable spirits, and an eternal outcast, it forbids. It 
encourages no vice, no sinful passions and propensi- 
ties ; while it discountenances and condemns every 
corrupt principle and every lurking source of evil. 
Wherever it has exerted its appropriate influence, it 
has imparted new aflections, new hopes, new motives 
of conduct, and a new and happy character. It im- 
parts views and affections which resemble those of 
the redeemed in heaven, and differ from them only in 
degree. They are the opening blossoms, the unripe 
fruit which will hereafter hang in all its richness and 
maturity on the tree of life which is in the midst of 
the paradise of God. By gradually diffusing its own 
spirit of righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy 
Ghost, it has changed the face of the world, and up- 
rooted those deep foundations of human society which 
were every where inlaid with injustice, oppression 
and misery. It has renovated the character of indivi- 
duals, families and nations: and in the same propor- 
tion in which its principles and spirit have prevailed, 
has banished sin and misery from the abodes of men. 
Its influence has not always been alike uniform, be- 
cause it has sometimes had more difficulties and oppo- 
sition to encounter than at others ; nor has it always 
been alike visible, even where it has been real and 
felt, because its plans are comprehensive, and it acts 
upon a large scale. But even where most obstructed, 



314 CONCLUSION. 

it has left sensible traces of its benevolent design ; and 
where least observed, it has often been preparing the 
way for its most extended conquests. 

May it not then be said, that the religion of the 
Bible is a benevolent religion ? Who, that is a friend 
to man, is not a friend of the Bible ? What part of 
the earth that now enjoys them, can afford to dispense 
with the Scriptures ? What greater calamity could 
befall our world than to lose the last copy of this sacred 
book ? What benevolent man could extinguish such 
a light as this ? Who ever was induced, from a sin- 
cere regard to the best interests of his fellow men, to 
subvert the foundation of so much public tranquillity, 
and so many private virtues and hopes ? Who would 
bring back upon the world the ignorance and servi- 
tude, the horror and crime of the dark ages ? Who 
would be the agent in inducing it to retrace its steps 
to the ignorance and superstitions of paganism ; to the 
impure and sanguinary altars of Baal-Peor, Moloch, 
and Ashtaroth ; to the obscene groves of oriental idol- 
atry ; to the hero gods of Egypt and Greece, and to 
all that shall foster the basest and most malignant 
passions of men ? Who would throw back the hu- 
man intellect upon a state of scepticism and uncer- 
tainty as to the reality of a future and immortal exist- 
ence, and the way of securing its blessedness by faith in 
the only Redeemer ? Who would impart anew all 
their power to those exciting causes of human de- 
pravity which the Bible has subdued or restrained ? 
Who would dry up those Uving fountains of joy which 
it has opened ? Who would destroy or diminish its 
motives to well doing, and wither its fruits of right- 
eousness ? Who would refuse its consolations to the 
heart of the bereaved, and provoke afresh those tears 
of the mourner which it has wiped away? Who 
would tell the widow and the orphan to go and visit 



CONCLUSION. 315 

the tombs of those they loved, and come trembling 
away, trembling on through life, trembling and uncer- 
tain to the grave, to learn all there, but not to bring 
back the secret ? 0, where is the man that would thus 
consent to restore to death the sting, and to the grave 
the victory, which the Bible has taken away ? No 
calculations could measure, no numbers estimate the 
loss, were this book to be blotted out of existence ; 
nor were it possible to appreciate it, except from the 
extended cry of misery and despair that would be 
consequent on excluding it from the world. Fiends 
alone, and men like fiends, would toll its funeral knell, 
and crowd in joyful procession to its tomb ; while vir- 
tuous and holy minds, veiled in mourning, and bathed 
in tears, would turn away disconsolate, and bury their 
hopes in the same grave with the Bible. 

May we not also say, in view of the preceding lec- 
tures, THAT THE BiBLE IS A BOOK PRE-EMINENTLY DIS- 
TINGUISHED FOR ITS INTELLECTUAL SUPERIORITY ? 

With very few exceptions, I have carefully read this 
book every day for more than forty years, and I have 
never discovered in it a single mark of intellectual im- 
becility. Though portions of it were written during 
the periods of this world's infancy and darkness, and 
when contemporaneous authors evinced nothing more 
than their ignorance and weakness ; though it treats 
of a vast variety of themes, difficult, complicated, and 
some of them mysterious ; yet does it every where 
evince a powerful and well-disciplined intelligence. 
In mere intellectual excellence, it has claims to superi- 
ority over every other and all other books. 

It is in every view an original work. It is impos- 
sible for language to speak of it in this respect in the 
terms of commendation which it deserves. Its ama- 
zing thoughts and combinations of thought, discover 
wonderful originality of mind. Read, for example, 

27 



316 CONCLUSION. 

the Ten Commanclments given from Mount Sinai by- 
Moses ; a code of laws so wonderfully comprehensive 
and perfect, that it cannot be improved upon by all 
the legislative wisdom of the world in respect to its 
influence upon human opinions, affections, and con- 
duct. And the entire book exhibits throughout, the 
same originality and simplicity of thought. While it 
aims not at originality for its own sake, yet " it makes 
disclosures which have eclipsed and consigned to ob- 
livion all prior discoveries." It does not disdain to 
dwell upon important truths that are old, and give 
them to the world again v/ith " all that original fresh- 
ness and force which is the peculiar prerogative of 
genius," nor does it withhold disclosures which are 
peculiarly its own. Many of its instructions are com- 
mon-place to us, while to the most learned minds of 
Greece and Rome, they were " new and strange 
things," and have added almost every thing that is ori- 
ginal and valuable to our intellectual resources. Its 
sublimest truths and great peculiarities it places in a 
clear and strong light ; and what is always the work 
of an original and powerful mind, it makes them as 
level to the capacities of the meanest, as of the high- 
est intellect. To cursory readers, whose object is 
amusement, they afford comparatively little interest ; 
but to those who v/ill consent to digest what they read, 
they will prove a perfectly original source of mental 
improvement. 

The Bible is also an inexhaustible book. The ex- 
tent, number, variety and importance of the subjects 
of which it treats, the weight and pertinence of its in- 
structions, as well as the illimitable extent of views it 
opens to the mind, give it a pre-eminence above all 
other books that ever were written. The more you 
gaze at its splendors, the more is your vision dazzled 
and overpowered ; and the more you investigate its 



CONCLUSION. 317 

truths, the more do its resources appear unwasted and 
unwastiiig. It has exhausted many a Ufe, and many 
a capacious and vigorous mind, while itself remains 
unexhausted. There are men who have studied tliis 
volume most thoroughly and intensely, and who, the 
more they have studied, have been the more charmed 
with its clearness and simplicity ; and who, at the 
same time, have been at every step of their progress, 
more and more deeply convinced that it is a fathom- 
less profound of light and knowledge. There are 
those who have made it the chief object of their in- 
vestigation for half a century ; who have studiously 
examined every paragraph it contains, some fifty or 
an hundred times ; and who at every fresh perusal, 
have discovered new thoughts and new sources for 
admiration and joy. It has been read and studied a 
thousand fold more than any other book ; libraries 
have been written upon it, and while, by every un- 
wearied research, you see that new truths are elicited, 
you at the same time hear the most patient students 
of its pages confess, that the more deeply they have 
been absorbed in their contemplations of it, the deep- 
er has been their conviction of its iUimitable resources. 
Mark also the intellect discoverable in the perfect 
harmony and unity of its object. It was not composed 
in a single age, but in the progress of sixteen hundred 
years, and during a period in which the views and opi- 
nions of men were in a state of great fluctuation. It 
was not written by one man, but a great variety of men, 
men in different classes of human society, men imbued 
with different prejudices, unlettered men, and men of 
science. They wrote, too, upon subjects on which 
men are specially prone to differ. Most of the writers 
also were entirely unknown to one another. And yet 
there is the same great outline, there are the same 
principles, and the same great object and end. Every 



318 CONCLUSION. 

thing is so harmonious throughout the whole book, 
that, did you not know otherwise, but for the varia- 
tion in style and circumstance, you might naturally 
suppose it came from the same pen. The instances 
of apparent disagreement among the different writers 
of the sacred volume, and of apparent contradiction in 
the same writers, are found on inquiry, to be no dis- 
agreement in reality, but rather a confirmation of their 
substantial harmony. There has been some governing 
and strong intelligence presiding over these successive 
narratives and instructions. One grand design, one 
undivided system of truth and duty, redemption and 
retribution, runs through the whole. 

But more than all, does the intellectual superiority 
of the Scriptures appear in the elevation and grandeur 
of the design itself. Let a man sit down to the peru- 
sal of this book, from beginning to end, as he would 
study a tragedy, or epic poem, and he will discover 
traces of a plan, which, in its commencement, pro- 
gress, filling up, close and catastrophe, exhibits 
powers of a most original and inventive genius. It 
carries you back into the ages of eternity, and de- 
velopes its original purpose at a time when " there 
were no depths, and no fountains of water, and before 
ever the earth was." The theatre of this wonderful 
drama is this extended and beautiful earth ; the great 
actors in it, the three glorious Persons in the ever- 
blessed Godhead, angels and men; the spectators, 
all intelligent existences ; the time, from the prime- 
val creation down to the period when time shall be 
lost in eternity ; the interests at stake, the well-being 
of every son and daughter of Adam; the events 
disclosed, the apostasy of angels and men, the pre- 
dicted Seed of the woman waging war upon the king- 
dom of darkness, the special vocation of a people from 
whom the Messiah was to be descended, the fear- 



CONCLUSION. 319 

ful revolution of empires, and the rapid clianges in 
human affairs with a view to his advent, his wonder- 
ful incarnation, and more wonderful character, God 
and man mysteriously united, his death and sacrifice 
on the cross as a satisfaction to divine justice for the 
sins of men, the descent of the Holy Spirit, the pro- 
gressive conflict between light and darkness, holiness 
and sin, the apparently doubtful issue, the ultimate 
triumph of the mighty Redeemer, the resurrection 
from the dead on the last day, the final judgment, the 
sentence pronounced, and executed, the heavens pass- 
ing away, the elements melting, the earth burnt up, 
the perfections of the Deity gradually and progres- 
sively unfolded, and the everlasting song, " Salvation 
to him that sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb I" 
Such is the Bible as an index of thought and intelli- 
gence. Has it not in this respect a legitimate claim to 
superiority ? 

Permit me also to enquire. Is there not evidence 
that the Bible is not the work of man ? Whence is 
this intellectual superiority ? Whence is it that the 
herdsmen, and fishermen, and tent-makers of Judea 
have given a book to the world which is so superior to 
all the productions of human genius and learning, so 
undivided and unique in its object, and in its design so 
unutterably grand and elevated ? What presiding 
genius, what master-mind was it, that controlled and 
propelled them at every step ? If the greatness of 
the cause may be ascertained from the greatness of 
the effect, is not this book, as a mere intellectual effort, 
inexplicable upon any other supposition, than that it 
is of divine original ? Does not the light that ema- 
nates from these pages proceed from the great Foun- 
tain and eternal Source of knowledge ? Is it not the 
production of the Infinite mind ? Is it not impossible 
that it should have been the result of human inven- 
27* 



320 CONCLUSION. 

tion ? Is it not utterly beyond the grasp of man ? 
Has it not an elevation of thought, a vigour, and extent, 
a greatness of conception which make the proudest 
efforts of human genius melt away like an untimely 
birth, and which bears on the face of it the intelligence 
and signature of heaven ? 

Who is the author of a book all Avhose aims and 
tendencies are so full of kindness ? Does the benevo- 
lence of the Bible look like the work of man ? It was 
the remark of the celebrated Madame De Stael, that 
she desired no other evidence of the truth of Chris- 
tianity than the Lord's Prayer. It is indeed the arche- 
type of all appropriate supplication. And this prayer 
is but an epitome of the benevolent spirit that breathes 
throughout the New Testament. In no instance does 
the Bible exert an influence which a benevolent spirit 
would desire to repress. And does not this form a 
strong presumption in favour of its divine original ? 
Can a work which bears so prominently the marks of 
kindness and mercy, be rationally attributed to hu- 
man artifice and pious fraud ? When the captious 
and foolish Pharisees saw the Saviour heal the de- 
moniac, they preposterously said, " This fellow doth 
cast out devils by Beelzebub, the Prince of devils. 
But Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them. 
Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to de- 
struction ; and every city, or house divided against it- 
self shall not stand. And if Satan cast out Satan, he 
is divided against himself.^' To suppose that such a 
book were a fabrication, were to suppose that false- 
hood is the fruit of goodness, and that the kingdom 
of darkness is divided against itself. The design to 
impose such a volume upon the world could originate 
from no other than the worst forms of human wicked- 
ness. And who can believe that a book of such a 
benevolent character had such an origin ? The Bible 



CONCLUSION. 321 

professes to be a teacher sent from God. As God is 
benevolent and holy in his nature, every thing that 
proceeds from him must be benevolent and holy in 
its tendency, and produce holiness and happiness as 
its fruits. And does not the benevolent tendency of 
this book sustain its claims to this divine origin ? Can 
its benevolent character be accounted for, without 
allowing its claims to divine inspiration ? It is true 
that *' we alloAV great excellence to what is contained 
in many books which no one supposes to be inspired -j" 
but is not the excellence of their precepts and doc- 
trines derived from the Bible ; and where is there a 
book of unalloyed, unmingled excellence except this, 
and such as owe their excellences to this origin ? Does 
not the Bible do honour to a divine Author ? Is it 
not destined to accomplish all tlie purposes which an 
infinitely benevolent mind desires to accomplish ? 

And whence is this universal adaptation to the char- 
acter and condition of our race, except from Him who 
knew how to reveal a system of truth and grace fitted 
to universal humanity ? There have been here and 
there men who were so much in advance of the age 
in which they lived, that they have impressed their 
own individual character upon large portions of hu- 
man society around them, and upon their own nation, 
and perhaps, to some extent, upon the existing gene- 
ration ; though this last hypothesis may be seriously 
called in question. But where is the man whose 
mighty mind has diffused its vivifying rays, not over 
one country and nation, and generation of men, but 
whose thoughts and principles, whose strong and ar- 
dent affections and moral impulses have the same 
adaptation to man in whatever quarter of the world, 
and in whatever age of time he is found ? The work 
of man is a partial, relative and limited work. But it 
is God alone that can perform a work and reveal a 



322 CONCLUSION. 

religion that is equally adapted to every age, and place, 
and creature of this vast creation. If there is a religion 
revealed from heaven, it must possess the character- 
istics of universality and perpetuity. God alone can 
speak to the race. His love alone, overlooking all the 
peculiarities of time, circumstance, condition, and 
character, embraces the race, and makes its appeals to 
the heart of man wherever he is found. This is done 
by the religion of the Bible ; and wherever such a re- 
ligion is found, it comes from God. The religion of 
nature, so far as it goes, is for this reason from him ; 
and the religion of the Bible, extending so far beyond 
the religion of nature, is, for the same reason, from 
the same divine source. Is there not a peculiarity in 
the Bible, in all these respects, which distinguishes it 
as the work of God ? 

Man can perform only the work of man. What- 
ever God does, "exhibits such clear traces of the 
divine workmanship, as will distinguish it, at once, 
from the works of man. No one, when he surveys 
a ship, or a steam engine, or a watch, the fairest 
specimens perhaps of human ingenuity, is in any 
danger of attributing either of them to the handiwork 
of his Maker. But if we look at the works of crea- 
tion, we cannot find a star in the firmament, nor a 
cloud in the sky, nor an animal, or vegetable, or 
mineral on the earth, nor atom in the sunbeams 
which has not written on it in letters of light, " The 
hand that made me is divine.'' The same is true of 
the works of Providence. No man can trace the 
path of a planet, or the progress of an empire, or the 
life of man, or the fall of a sparrow, or the drop of a 
leaf, without discovering that all-wise hand which 
regulates their motions. Surely then, when God 
undertakes to reveal his thoughts to men, he can 
stamp on the revelation similar evidence that it is the 



CONCLUSION. 323 

work of the Divine mind."* Does not the Bible 
carry with it a sort of intuitive evidence that it is the 
work of God? It has not been the object of these 
lectures to discuss the question of the divine origin 
of the Scriptures ; and yet, may I not be allowed to 
ask, whether they do not furnish evidence of their 
divine origin which may not be hastily set aside ? 
Honest inquirers after the truth we respect; but we 
care little for the cavils of men who " contend against 
their maker.'^ We may say to them all, " Who art 
thou that repliest against God ?" It is no matter of 
surprise that so much patient and critical investigation 
has been bestowed on this great subject. No question 
in the whole circle of the sciences has received half 
the attention that has been devoted to this. Every 
inch of ground has been by turns defended and dis- 
puted ; and had there been a weak spot in the defence, 
it had long since been discovered and assailed. This 
sacred book has passed the ordeal of the severest 
examination ; and it is no assumption to say, that its 
claims have been established. Had it been possible, 
wicked and corrupt men had long ago swept it from 
the earth. Men have been forbidden to read it ; 
more than once has it been publicly burnt by the 
common hangman ; emperors and councils have been 
leagued against it ; popes and priests have conspired 
to corrupt and destroy it ; but the more it has been 
opposed, the better has it been known and loved. 
Other things grow old, and time detracts from their 
vigour, but the Bible is always new and always 
young. A tithe of the evidence, in relation to any 
other matter, which has been adduced in favour of 
the divine origin of the Scriptures, would have 

* Rev. S. E. Dwight's Sermon at the Installation of Rev. E. 
Jenkins. 



324 CONCLUSION. 

silenced and satisfied the world. If there are those 
who are sceptical and incredulous, and will not be 
convinced by the evidence which has so often been 
adduced in its favour, we doubt much whether evi- 
dence ever convinces them. The strong hold of 
infidelity is more often found in the heart than in the 
intellect. It has its throne in the corrupted affections. 
It finds its aliment in the love of sin. Men are not 
willing to believe the Bible is true because it requires 
with such infinite authority, and on such fearful 
penalties, a holy life. Pride, luxury, ambition, volup- 
tuousness, and secret sin, are the enemies of the Bible. 
There is no opinion more erroneous than that infi- 
delity is founded on an apprehended deficiency of the 
evidence which supports a divine revelation. " If 
they believe not Moses and the prophets, neither 
would they be persuaded though one rose from the 
dead.'' Scepticism has other sources than want of 
light. " Light is come into the world, and men have 
loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds 
are evil." Those who most resemble God are most 
likely to believe him. " If any man will do his will, 
he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God.'' 
I will conclude by adding— 

Is not the Bible worthy your serious and solemn 
attention ? The real merit of objects is not always 
discerned in our first acquaintance with them. The 
great design throughout these lectures has been to 
honour the word of God. Most sincerely do I wish 
they were a tribute more worthy of the great book 
I have desired to exalt. To me it has seemed that 
the Bible is not appreciated. How can it be when it 
is so little known ? A familiar acquaintance with 
the sacred volume is the only way of ascertaining its 
true excellence. The Abbe Winkelman, perhaps the 
most classical writer upon the Fine Arts, after descant- 



CONCLUSION. 325 

ing with great zeal upon the perfection of sculpture 
as exhibited in the Apollo Belvidere, says to young 
artists, " Go and study it ; and if you see no great 
beauty in it to captivate you, go again.' And if you 
still discover none, go again and again. Go until 
you feel it ; for be assured it is there." So say we 
of the Bible. You may not, — nay, you cannot dis- 
cover its worth at a single reading. Though its great 
truths are perfectly plain and easy to be understood, 
it requires diligent mental exertion to comprehend 
so vast a book. It has excellences, which, the more 
they are discovered, will the more lead you to say 
with one who was no indolent, or passive reader of 
its pages, " Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold 
wonderful things out of thy law !" All the treasures 
of this inexhaustible mine are not found upon its 
surface. After all that critics and theologians have 
explored, rich jewels will yet be found far below 
the ground. " Search the Scriptures." Search them 
daily. Search them not from curiosity merely, though 
curiosity and learning are amply remunerated by 
the search ; but from a deep and personal interest 
in their instructions. Endeavour to extract from 
them the sense they were intended to convey. 
And that you may do this, go to them with a 
heart and mind deeply imbued with their spirit. It 
is true they require thought and intellect ; but it is 
not always when mere intellect is most exercised and 
acute, that divine truth discloses itself to the mind 
most clearly, or in its most lovely forms. I have 
known men who were profound critics and acute 
controversialists ; whose inquiries indicated an enlarged 
and comprehensive acquaintance with the sacred 
volume ; who employed all their energy and re- 
sources in becoming masters of that varied learning 
which might shed light upon this ancient book ; but 



326 CONCLUSION. 

who were never "mighty in the Scriptures," because 
they had not drank into its spirit, and who instead 
of unlocking this rich treasury, took away the key 
of knowledge. The Bible is not more a revelation 
of the mind, than of the heart of the Deity. It has a 
soul ; and it is the soul only that can catch its heavenly 
teachings. When you go to this book of God, let it 
be not so much to gratify a restive intellect, as to find 
spiritual aliment ; not so much to decipher the Urim 
and Thummim, as to find the heavenly manna. 
There are difficulties, nay, there are mysteries in the 
Bible ; and so there are mysteries in every star and 
every grain of sand. But if it makes you holy and 
fits you for heaven, you may leave it to its enemies to 
reproach it on account of its mysteries. 

Nor is it enough to understand the Scriptures. 
They must be loved and obeyed. Search them, 
sincerely desirous not only to know, but to do the 
will of their Author. Though they may be wound- 
ing to your pride, receive them with all readiness 
of mind. Though there may be a sensible collision, 
a severe conflict, between the truth of God and the 
unhumbled heart ; yet must the truth of God be 
believed and loved. It is no impossible thing for 
your convictions to correspond with the truths of the 
Bible, while your affections and dispositions ha\^e no 
such correspondence. The word of God has com- 
prehensive claims. Its great Author requires every 
man to receive it on his own divine testimony. True 
Christianity is heartfelt obedience to the truth of God. 
" He that believeth not God, hath made him a liar, 
because he believeth not the record which God hath 
given concerning his Son." 0, it were a grief of 
heart, my young friends, to live and die the enemy 
of this Bible and this Saviour. " Hold fast that thou 
hast, let no man take thy crown !" 



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